Joseph Mawle cooks up a storm as a racist chef who becomes an unlikely local hero in the latest episode of The Street Most recently seen playing a victim of the credit crunch in the BBC2 drama Freefall, actor Joseph Mawle returns to our screens in BBC1's The Street on Monday August 3, playing a bitter and bigoted chef who finds himself hailed a hero by the local Polish community... My character in The Street, Kieran, is an angry young man... "He's angry with himself and the world he lives in. Then his seemingly racial prejudice is put to the test and he starts to find his true colours." It's imperative that television tackles hard-hitting issues like racism... "TV needs to educate, inform, disturb and enlighten our society. One would hope that this kind of drama will provoke debate." Playing Jesus in The Passion made me search for serenity, peace and forgiveness... "Playing The Ripper in Red Riding, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. He was a man who had no forgiveness, whose logic was warped to others but not to him." Growing up, I was a big fan of adventure stories like The Voyages of Sinbad and Lord of the Rings... "It would be fantastic to appear in a fantasy and a good excuse to spend all day studying a great book, as well as motivation to get fit or fat, or whatever is required." The worst job I had was working on the fryers at McDonald's... "Either that or being dressed as a bear touring schools with a very angry Santa. Santa, if you're out there, I'd like to kick your ass!" My next project is a film called We Want Sex, about the Ford Dagenham strike in 1968... "I also pop up in Philip Ridley's new film Heartless, which premieres at Frightfest on 31 August." My Freefall co-star Dominic Cooper was so lucky to be in Mamma Mia!... "Spending a summer surrounded by great actors and actresses, having a party of a lifetime and getting paid for it - come on!"
