In the world of binge-watching TV Supacell really falls under that doesn’t it?

Absolutely, absolutely. From what people have been saying, it’s one of those shows you can’t stop watching. Each cliffhanger just keeps you wanting more and more and more and more. Everyone [laughs] has been going to sleep at five o’clock in the morning, having to get up for six to get ready for work, just from binging the show [laughs].

It's a superhero show, but it’s much more grounded, isn’t it? Is that what attracted you to the script?

Exactly. It’s not no superhero show where everyone is putting Spandex on or trying to save the day, holding up a bridge that’s falling. It just feels like reality. It just feels very grounded with real, layered characters where; what would happen if me, Michael Salami was to wake up tomorrow and have a super-power, what would I actually do? Would I go and save the day? Probably not. I would just try to sort my situation out, my world, and how I can help everyone make my situation better. So definitely that’s what attracted me, the groundedness of each character.

It's been written and directed by Rapman. What’s been the beauty of his writing?

From some shows I’ve seen in the past, when they try to depict the experience of black people, it not feeling authentic or organic. Sometimes you can just tell when you hear, it was not written by someone who has lived that life or is from that area. But the beauty of Rapman’s language is that it captured the world of South London very well, it felt organic, very real, it didn’t feel forced. He allowed freedom from the actors to bring in their own flavour to really make it all jell seamlessly.

So he encouraged you to bring what authenticity felt right for you?

Absolutely. His questions would be, “What would you say? How would you say it? You know your character.” He trusted that we knew our character very well because he knew what kind of talent he was bringing to the table. He was always trying to make it as authentic as possible, and I respected that.

And your character Gabriel. Tell us more about him. I found him very grounded and down to earth.

He’s Michael’s [Tosin Cole] best friend, he’s that go to person that you want to have. Everybody wants to be Gabriel’s friend, the person you can come to with your problems. He’s gonna give you the best advice and he’s not gonna sugar-coat around it. He’s not gonna lie to you and he’s gonna support you at every single chance. I love playing Gabriel. These Gen Zs, they say, “WW Gabriel.” I think the ‘W’ stands for win. It’s a win for Gabriel [laughs]. The way Rapman described it to me is that Michael needs moments where he needs to explain to an audience how he’s feeling, and what he’s really going through. So he used my character as those moments. My character is supposed to be what the audience would like to say back to him. They wanna comfort and hug him, they wanna say, “It’s ok. Just keep on going.” My character has a lot of importance according to Rapman.

It really does and the bar that he owns, it’s like the central hub that everybody goes to. It’s that safe space, so it’s very much an extension of your character, isn’t it?

Exactly.  It’s like its own character, the Onyx Bar. I always compare it, like in Friends when they have either a coffee shop or they have Chandler and Monica’s home. It’s that safe space where they all meet up and jell together.

Leading on from what you were saying about Rapman bringing authenticity. It’s set in South London, there are a lot of gangs, there is street and knife crime. How important is it to depict that authentically, but not glorify or make gang life look sexy for TV?

I think Rapman’s done it really well because Tazer’s [Josh Tedeku] character wasn’t made to be loved and at no point did I feel I wanted this kid to win. In fact, I looked at him from the beginning to the very end like, ‘You’re an idiot. You’re really making very wrong choices.’ But the reality is it depicts a part of Rapman, it also depicts when I was a kid, the kind of life I was trying to get out of, but I didn’t know anything else apart from the world I lived in. So it’s a very honest depiction. But what’s great about Supacell is that it’s one of five stories and the other stories are really important as well. There’s someone working in the NHS, battling to be a father; even Tazer’s relationship with his grandmother, where in the home, he’s very respectful, he’s got a lot of love. He’s going through a lot of trauma, he doesn’t know how to deal with it, he goes back to the roads; and now you have super-powers and the first idea is to be the baddest person in the area. There’s a lot of things going on with Tazer, which I think is important to showcase in that storyline because it’s a reality of what still goes on in London. So not to glorify it but to show the reality, which was painted quite well.

Supacell has been this global hit. Who do you think has been Supacell’s audience?

Everyone. That’s the beauty of it and that’s so hard to do. I originally thought it might just appeal to the urban, black youths who are in the UK; cos when you’re filming, all you really know is your scenes and Rapman’s previous work. But after watching it, it was like, ‘Oh my God this in gonna appeal to everyone.’ It’s for every genre of every age. If you go online and see people’s reactions, they are watching it with their grandmothers, dads, mums. From it being number one in Germany, France, South Africa and everywhere around the world. So it appeals to everyone, cos everyone can see their own reality that they can relate to. So it’s not just to one genre, gender, or race.

Yeah, taking the super-powers away, each of the characters are three dimensional and face the difficulties in everyday life that we can all relate to.

Absolutely, across the world in every language. It blows my mind. It is such a great accomplishment to be able to appeal to 80 plus countries, being number one and even when it wasn’t, it was number two. So globally to achieve something like that, I’m so proud, man. It has always been a dream of mine to be in a show that can have that kind of appeal. Did I know it was going to be Supacell? No. But Rapman said it was going to be, and he was right [laughs].

I’ve done a lot of interviews within the black, ethnic, South London film scene which set the bar for where we are today, but the production value of Supacell is much more elevated isn’t it?

Absolutely. From the colour-grading, to the music, sound, scoring, the DoPing. Beautiful. The lighting is fantastic that makes our skin pop. My showreel is gonna look amazing, let’s just say that [laughs].

You talked about growing up in South London, but if I can take you back, you trained at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, where Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Marlon Brando trained. How did you make that happen? I mean that’s phenomenal.

I grew up in East London but spent a lot of time in south London. But that was a mission [laughs]. That was very hard, at that point I was broke. I left university after doing two years as I couldn’t afford a third. Because I was born in America, but raised in the UK, I wasn’t entitled to a student loan. I didn’t have parents that could afford to pay for my school, so it was up to me. I was able to afford the first year through student overdrafts and getting myself into a lot of debt. I decided to do acting, but if I’m going to act, I’m gonna go 100%. But if you’re gonna be an actor, there’s no money the first so many years. I was doing really well, doing theatre, YouTube, I was getting a name for myself within my community.  But I wanted more. I always believed in a quote, ‘I wish the stage was as narrow as a tight rope, so only the competent dare walk upon it.’ I wanted to feel like I deserved to be on a stage. Now, I couldn’t afford to audition for drama school because every audition was about £50, I had about £2 to my name [laughs]. I couldn’t afford even one audition, nor did I think I could get in because at that time they only allowed one black student per year. So what are the chances of me spending £50, plus that happening. Stella Adler came up on Facebook for an audition, so I was like, ‘Let me just go and see if I can get in, that would be enough for me to feel like I deserve to be on a stage.’ I went to audition, they said they loved it and said, “Why do you want to come to Stella Adler?” I quoted that quote, and he was like, “You know Stella had that written on her wall in her office?” I was like, ‘What?!’ Now, I’m a man of faith and I don’t believe in coincidences. So I just saw it as almost a sign, like, ‘Maybe you should try this.’ I got an email that evening saying I had been accepted. At that time, I was working at the Oval Theatre as front of house staff, so I got myself two more jobs, working night shifts at Tesco. I was working around the clock, non-stop for three months, working four jobs at the same time.  Also, I got sponsored by the Old Vic Theatre, and by Bush Theatre. I did one of those Spartan courses where you have to run around for 5K climbing fences to raise funds. I was able to raise enough to pay for my first semester, a one-way flight to New York and for at least a month’s worth of food, but I had nowhere to live. I couched surfed for the first six to seven months until I was able to afford my own place. I was essentially homeless, sleeping in train stations, McDonald’s, walking around the streets, but I made it work. I was born in America, so I was able to get a job to support myself and send money back home. I was able to get a scholarship for my second year and work at the school. Honestly one of the toughest, but best experiences of my life. It shaped me and made me the man I am today. Before going to New York and Stella Adler I really didn’t know who I was; raised in the hood, being a foreigner, trying to find my identity, not really knowing who I was, but trying to fit in somewhere, trying to find my calling, feeling like a uni-dropout and not having a pound to my name. But after going to Stella Adler, it really helped me to find who I am, who I was and who I wanted to be. It changed my life. I came back and after a month, my life just took off [laughs]. I booked Hollyoaks for three years and did this, and it’s been up since then.

What an inspirational story and thank you for sharing it with me. You talked about theatre; can you tell me more about your love for that medium?

Theatre is my absolute baby; I love theatre so much. I think the discipline of theatre makes me a better human and a better actor as well because you have to stay on top of everything. There’s no pausing, there’s no let’s rewind, no let’s retake. I love the feeling when you’re on stage, when you’ve got the audience locked in, leaning forward on the seat, waiting for your next word. I love having that power, the feeling of hearing laughter, you can hear people cry. There is just something about being on stage. I love the journey of having your character go from a to z and you get to see it in a linear fashion. They used to say at Stella Adler, “Say there’s 100% acting, 10% is about the moment that you can have an outer body experience where you’re like, ‘What the hell, how did I even do that?’” You embodied a character so much; you don’t even know how you got there. And that other 90% is very technical, where to stand on stage, how to vocalise and project, knowing that you have to hit a certain line etc. But on stage, you get to find yourself in that 10% and I love that. Then you feel like you’re being a real actor, you became that character.

Do you have any advice for those leaving drama school and how you accept jobs?

I ask myself three questions when it comes to accepting a new job: will you and your family respect yourself after doing the role? Will it help you elevate and grow as an actor and human? And will it help you, financially? If it ticks at least two or three of these boxes, I usually go for the role. If it ticks only one, it's more than likely I would turn it down.

The role of a lifetime is unlikely to come straight away, so you need to work – to get experience, to make contacts. You have to be very smart about it. And there will be times you need to be brave to take your career in the direction that you aspire to. I could have stayed in Hollyoaks longer if I wanted to – it was a fantastic experience, but I wanted to continue to challenge myself and do a variety of jobs, so I came out of it and did a two-year tour in the theatre to help me continue to hone my acting skills. It is important to navigate your career very well – understand where you want to go and the steps you need to do to get yourself there.

Going back to Supacell what’s been the biggest reward working on the show?

I think the biggest reward is feeling like a full-circle moment. I’ve been doing this for about 15 years now and my first ever short film was with Sebastian Thiel, it was directed and written by him, and produced by Sheila Nortley. Now 10-15 years later, Sebastian is directing me in Supacell and Sheila is producing Supacell; that for me is one of the most beautiful moments, having a flashback of when I first walked into an audition and I remember seeing Sebastian; he had no hair, no dreadlocks, he was just a young kid. I had seen his work, and I really wanted him to like me because he was someone I knew one day was gonna be amazing. We connected immediately and years later we’re best friends and he is now with dreadlocks to the floor [laughs]. He’s incredible. So when we’re on set just looking at each other, you don’t have to say anything, we just had that giddy moment, ‘Oh my God bro, we’re actually here.’ Crazy full-circle moment. And Sheila walking round doing her thing, it’s just like, ‘Wow. God is amazing.’  That was my best moment.

MICHAEL SALAMI stars in SUPACELL available on NETFLIX