Sam Masud

In a recent conversation on Josh Smith’s Great Chat Show, BAFTA-winning actress Naomi Ackie spoke candidly about the realities of being a woman of colour in the entertainment industry “We've been saying it for years, no one cares... and just in every industry, I think there is this weird thing that happens where the expectations of you as whatever your job role is, are much higher. Like you have to do a lot more to prove yourself. Why is the phone not ringing as much? I did this, what I thought was a really cool thing. I won a BAFTA. Why is it not hitting in the same way? And it causes a lot of self-doubt. You have to really motivate yourself, and what ends up happening, what I experienced, was like a lot of like, 'You're amazing, you're amazing,' but then never like a kind of return on that. And that makes you put a lot of pressure on yourself. If you're already a perfectionist, that just makes it so much worse. And it also makes you really mad, and angry, and watchful, hypervigilant. Then when you do get a job, you are applying so much pressure to get it perfect, to try and reach that mountaintop. But the goalposts keep moving. Women of colour inhabit a space that is very unique, that they're both women, and they are people of colour. It's angering. I've almost surrendered to it. It's frustrating and needs to be changed. But within the system we live in, I don't see that happening anytime soon. So instead now what I'm doing is doing my work really well, being myself, not putting pressure on myself, and doing what I want."