Daniel Kaluuya struggling to get roles in UK due to racism

Daniel Kaluuya attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition on Monday, May 7, 2018, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Daniel Kaluuya attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition on Monday, May 7, 2018, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Published Jan 14, 2020

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Actor Daniel Kaluuya has claimed he was denied a string of roles in Britain because of the "colour" of his "skin".

The "Queen & Slim" star opened up in an interview with The Sunday Times newspaper about why he's become more successful in the US than in his home country, and said that, although he was auditioning for a lot of roles in the UK, he wasn't getting them because of his race, reports aceshowbiz.com.

"I was going for a lot of stuff, but I wasn't getting roles because of the colour of my skin. It wasn't fair. It was a trap."

Talking about one example of his past rejections, Kaluuya said: "I went up for this show. It was 10 rounds of auditions. There was me and a white guy for the lead. It was about aliens. And I realised as I was going to one audition that the other guy had been given an acting coach. They didn't love me like they loved him."

He added: "And this is no joke. This is my life. This is a job. In any other profession, that would be weird, but it was accepted in mine. It happened a few times, and I went, Nah. I'm not an idiot."

The "Get Out" actor said that despite having no intentions of casting him, producers invited him to audition for roles because "they probably liked the ideas I had and told them (to the other actor)."

"Maybe they were fighting for me, but the people who make the decisions weren't in that room, so the auditions were a fraud," he said.

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