Rake-in-Progress: David Ajala

To boldly go to the outer fringes of human experience — from trauma to grief via joy and wonder, dread and guilt, awe and ecstasy, loneliness, hope and pride — has been Hackney-born David Ajala’s raison d’être since he began an acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2008.

Ajala’s stage appearances range from Shakespeare (Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) to more contemporary fare, such as playing the NFL legend Jim Brown in One Night in Miami. His big-screen breakthrough, meanwhile, came in the teen drama Kidulthood in 2006. Appearances in The Dark Knight, Fast & Furious 6 and Jupiter Ascending followed, while small-screen roles have included portrayals of Manchester Black in Supergirl, Captain Roy Eris in Nightflyers, and — the role for which he is most widely recognised — Cleveland ‘Book’ Booker in Star Trek: Discovery.

Now living with his wife, the presenter and blogger Terri Martin, and their two sons, Elijah and Toby, Ajala meets The Rake on a blisteringly hot Friday in May at Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End, where he has been performing alongside Ewan McGregor and Elizabeth Debicki in Lila Raicek’s My Master Builder, directed by Michael Grandage.

Arriving a few minutes late, on an orange fold-up bicycle, the 39-year-old takes us through the stage door, and pats, hugs and hand-clasps all the theatre staff we encounter on our way to his dressing room.

My Master Builder is a twist on Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder but set in the modern day, in the Hamptons...
Yes. The best way to describe it is as a piece that’s in conversation with the Ibsen original. It’s one thing to adapt the play — to keep the touchstones, the themes, the tonality, the topics, and keep it relevant in your adaptation — but it’s another thing to create a piece that almost works parallel to the original piece. So I would say they work in tandem.

Your Star Trek character is an empath, meaning he can absorb other people’s emotions. Sounds like you’re fairly good at that when not in character...
Everyone’s going through different things, and I think the healthiest mindset we can all have is to be curious without judgment. While playing Cleveland Booker was a great gift, it also came at a cost, because he experienced emotional events in his life that were very, very heavy. When you’re channelling that, your brain doesn’t know the difference, so you still feel the impact and the residue of those experiences when you finish filming. The residue will always be there. Until it’s not.

Is there a burden of responsibility involved with playing a part in something that means so much to so many people?
The energy I get from Star Trek fandom is always very warm, very kind. It’s those moments [meeting fans] when you get, “When that moment happened, and you did that thousand-yard stare, I know what that stare is, because I served as a military man for however many years, and I remember that stare and what provoked that stare, and seeing it in your eyes — how do you replicate that?” It may sound like I’m blowing smoke up my own arse, but I can’t express how deeply humbling it is for people to recognise your work and see themselves in your work. It’s very humbling.

What is it about Erin Hanson’s lines — “What if I fall?”; “Oh, my darling. But what if you fly?” — that mean so much to you? 
It makes me emotional just thinking about that passage — it’s so powerful because it’s saying, If you care enough about something, in spite of the obstacles that you’re aware of or not aware of, one way or another you’ll find a way to push through. The two possibilities have their truths, but I’m going to pour my energy into the statement that says, ‘This could work’, and keep assuming it will until I need to think otherwise. I think acting’s about not being too precious and being confident enough to fail forward and to look a bit shitty. It’s about not worrying about the fear of failure, feeling confident enough to fumble through knowing that on the other side is something really, really special, and I’m happy to take the risk, to fumble a lot like a twat, to get to it.

The mystery thriller Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue will hit the U.K. soon. What can you tell us about it?
It’s such an elaborate, intriguing title, isn’t it! This is my first whodunnit, and when I said yes to the gig, I’d only read the first episode. During filming, for all I know, I could be killed off, or could be the killer, and that’s how I approached the work: not knowing. Throughout filming I’m either the killer being slick or I’m innocent and fighting for my life. That’s how fresh and in-the- episode I wanted to be. It kept me on my toes.

What was the catalyst that led you to where you are now? Is the story about your maths teacher thinking you should channel your hyperactivity into acting true?
Ah, Mr. Sen — bless him! Yes, but I also feel there’s another reason from childhood why I went into acting. My mum and dad, when they moved from Nigeria to the U.K. in the 1970s, immersed themselves in British culture — I kid you not — by watching all the Carry On films and the James Bond movies. The Carry On films were so cathartic — at a young age, I missed all the sexual innuendos. I think vicariously they are enjoying my career through me because I think inside both of them is a bit of an actor as well.