Comedian Munya Chawawa used to claim he was Idris Elba’s son to be seen by TV professionals

Comedian Munya Chawawa used to claim he was Idris Elba's son to be seen by TV professional Source: Channel 4 News

Transcript

00:00I love the fact that there are no gatekeepers now, that you are not looking for that one person

00:04to give you the green light to make your idea. When I started out, you know what I used to do?

00:09I used to, because I thought I needed an agent to make TV, I would email agents saying I was Idris

00:15Alba's son. Because, you know, on Gmail, it's got that tiny little picture of you. I thought,

00:21if they just see one drop of melanin, they might think it's true. And I would get in the room,

00:25I would get in the room, and then it would just be a never ending sequence of impressing the right

00:30person. And if at any point during that journey, I dropped the ball, that was my chance to make a TV

00:35show gone. So I would like to think that the tenacity and the sheer kind of volume of great

00:44ideas we see on social media will ignite something back in traditional television, that we will start

00:49to work more with those people, that those young boys will get their own show. And if that takes

00:55a while, that's fine, because they're still honing their craft as they go along. But I think that

00:58TV has to change.