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
![‘Idris Elba and Seal are the only Black men in England!’ Boxing Day’s Aml Ameen on repping the UK from LA](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1c39de448973f4208e32036944fd5ca73c4166c9/0_292_2667_1600/master/2667.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=7083aba567fd6352af84ff5b4ef81910)
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.