I

’m sitting in my trailer with my mom in Toronto, Canada, where we’re shooting the sixth season of US TV drama, Suits. This in itself is a novelty: my mom is sitting in my trailer, on a show in which I am a lead character, and that has a viewership of more than 1.7 million. It’s surreal. We never would have dreamed that this would be my reality. Our reality.

Just a year ago, I was in a van heading back from Gihembe refugee camp in Rwanda. I was there as an advocate for UN Women; I had a week of meetings with female parliamentarians in the city’s capital, Kigali, celebrating the fact that 64% of the Rwandan government are women – the first in the world where women hold a majority. I was also speaking with grassroots-level female leadership at the refugee camp just outside the area. Driving back on the dusty roads that day, I received an email from my managers asking whether I’d attend the Baftas. I had never been and had always romanticised it. A high-end jewellery company was going to fly me in, dress me in the fanciest of gowns, and I would travel straight from Kigali to Heathrow, London, to the make-up chair and on to the red carpet.

My brain, heart and spirit couldn’t shift gears that quickly, from the purpose-driven work I had been doing all week in Rwanda to the polished glamour of an awards show. ‘No,’ my heart said. And it wasn’t a soft whisper; it was a lion’s roar. I looked out the car window and saw a world of verdant beauty that had been riddled with genocide and unrest only 22 years ago, but had recovered with a decisive choice to overcome. The rolling fields, the goats and thump-thump of the ground as we drove – to me, it was bucolic bliss. It was love at its core. And in that moment, my gut said no because while my two worlds can coexist, I’ve learned that being able to keep a foot in both is a delicate balance. No, they are not mutually exclusive but guiding my heart through the swinging pendulum from Hollywood fantasy to third-world reality is challenging in its own way.