Percelle Ascott
The way in was self-made. Before anyone cast him, the Zimbabwean-British actor and writer Percelle Ascott was making a web comedy called Mandem on the Wall with Joivan Wade and Dee Kaate, and the three of them carried each other into commissioned work from there: the E4 series Youngers, then the film The Weekend. Building your own audience before the industry offers you one is a rarer route into British television than it sounds, and it explains why he arrived already comfortable on camera.
Children's television did the rest. He spent the 2012 to 2014 run of CBBC's Wizards vs Aliens as Benny Sherwood, the sidekick role that usually ends a career rather than starting one, and moved on through X+Y and Tin Star before Netflix gave him Harry in The Innocents.
The parts he attracts have a shape. Harry, Jay Agassi in I Came By, Reuben Maguire in I, Jack Wright: ordinary young men placed under pressure that the story keeps increasing, rather than showy character work with an accent and a limp. That is a harder assignment than it looks, because there is nothing to hide behind, and it is the reason he keeps getting cast in thrillers where the audience has to believe the person before it believes the plot.
Movies (2)
TV (4)
Where to start with Percelle Ascott
The Innocents first. It is the biggest part he has had, which makes it the fairest test of whether you want more of him.
Then I Came By, a thriller where he plays Jay and where the tension runs on ordinary people making bad decisions at normal speed. X+Y is the best film on the list and his role in it is small, so go for the film itself and take him as a bonus. Tin Star is worth it for the register, about as far from children's television as British drama gets. Save Wizards vs Aliens for last unless you were nine when it aired, in which case start there, because it was very good at the thing it was for. I, Jack Wright is the current one.