It is more than a decade since the London-born star of I May Destroy You moved to the US. Now, he has directed the first Black-led British Christmas film
Aml Ameen has one of those big, light-the-room smiles – and he deploys it freely, even to those physically impervious to his charm. When I join the video call, he is asking Alexa, very nicely, to turn down the music.
Ameen is at home in Los Angeles (to where he moved from London a decade or so ago). He has been acting professionally since he was six and now he has co-written, directed and starred in a romcom, Boxing Day. It is an irresistibly Christmassy London movie in the tradition of Love Actually (a film that he adores). It is also the UK’s first Christmas-set romantic comedy led by a Black cast.