Aml Ameen

It's a funny thing: my name in Arabic means hope, so I suppose I have to live by that principle. Hope is desire, feeling, and investing in a projection of something that doesn't yet exist. At its best, you witness its alchemy in your life, turning something that was once in the mind into reality. At its worst, it's delusion.

My goal was always to be working on the biggest stage in the world: Hollywood. Even when I was doing 'The Bill,' I approached the work like it was a Hollywood classic such as 'Training Day' or 'Boyz n the Hood.' So to have worked with some of the greats I've admired, such as Forest Whitaker, Kathy Bates, Cuba Gooding Jr., etc., it warms me.

A lot of British actors will look at America as such a land of opportunity. In England, there's such a small pool of working actors of color. There's such a small amount of work that is actually produced in the first place.

One of the reasons MSNBC is plummeting is that I, not long ago, refused to play any content from them. I figured, why? I mean, it's genuine depraved partisan politics insanity, genuine extremist radical ignoramuses on that network.

Working with franchises can be challenging, but at the same time I really did enjoy working on 'Star Wars,' for example, and I have done a lot of 'Dungeons & Dragons' games, but I still enjoy it very much.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?