This Is Us star Sterling K Brown has said the Trump administration has brought “ugliness” and “divisiveness” along with a cosigning “of bigotry and hatred”.

The actor, who will next be seen as a man accused of rape by a white woman in 1941 Connecticut in new film Marshall, said he feels it is important to use his acting as a form of activism.

Asked if he sees the movie differently to when he filmed it during the Obama administration, he said: “You can’t help but. We are under the administration of President Trump which has, inadvertently or purposefully, brought a certain ugliness with regards to the divisiveness that this country is feeling right now.

“A sort of a cosign-ment of bigotry and hatred seems to be trying to be normalised and so the fact this movie is coming out right now, about a man who went across the country fighting against racism and bigotry, means a lot to me because I can speak with my voice but I’m probably much more proficient with speaking with my art.”

The story is about an early case fought by Thurgood Marshall, who went on to be the first black US Supreme Court Justice.

Brown added: “And so my art is a form of activism in and of itself and to be a part of a film that educates people to the nature and the history of racism in this country, to let us know that even though this is 1941, a lot of the things we are dealing with now still resonate very much so in 2017, I’m happy to have it speak for me in a way that sometimes I can’t speak for myself.”

Asked if he felt angry about the way the president has handled the ongoing row with NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest against police brutality, he said: “Yes. I feel as if when you occupy the highest office in the land there is a level of diplomacy and etiquette that one should execute from that office and when you see someone behaving in a way that is petulant and less than, it breaks my heart.

“It sort of illuminates for the rest of the world that we seem as if we believe that this person speaks for us and he doesn’t.

“He called an athlete a son-of-a-bitch, come on man. That’s not right.”

Marshall is released in UK cinemas on October 20.