Reggie Yates webchat – your questions answered on Russian racists, growing up on TV and being a vampire

Thank you so much for all your questions, an absolute pleasure to hear what you the Guardian readers think and feel about the work I've done. There's lots more to come this year so thank you for your support, and for your questions - there's nothing worse than an echo chamber, and it's always great to be challenged on what you're doing. See you again soon, I'm sure.

We are in development at the moment on a series I've wanted to make for years, about identity. I love the city I was born in is as integrated as it is. London is a really special place. But I don't think we've spoken about how much things have changed in terms of race. What it is to be black and Briitsh is changing, and with mixed race Briton being the fastest growing race in this country, there's something to be said for the racially ambiguous to have a voice. We're in the final stages of developing an idea for the show about this, based on interracial relationships, for the BBC. So watch this space.

First of all, I wasn't exactly born with a silver spoon and didn't go to drama school - I'm not the product of nepotism or a financial leg up. I started out in a drama group, playing £2.50 a lesson, with people who wanted to excel - like Naomie Harris. And some of us ended up in jail. That being said, investment in young talent on a grassroots level should be happening across the country - we're all bored of hearing the same stories from the same sorts of voices. It's fantastic that things feel like they're changing but there's a long way to go. There's definitely a doc to be made about my drama group though!

Love the new xx album. There's a tune on the new Wiley album called Bang, with Ghetts - amazing song. Mercston's Back to 95 EP. A surprise EP from Jeremih and Chance the Rapper. The Little Simz album. And the new Kid Cudi record.

The best thing is to encourage them to be themselves at all times. I'm not a parent but I'm one of five kids, and my younger siblings are just as confident as they want to be because they were never encouraged to be anything but themselves. And it's ok to be quiet!

I will never fight to be taken seriously or otherwise, because I am what I am all the time. If you take that seriously, fantastic, if you don't, so what. To be compared to Louis Theroux is a massive compliment, but as someone who has sat with him, I feel I'm walking my own path, and can only learn from what has come before me rather than emulating it. Regardless of what people think of me and the work I've done, I have grown up on screen, and I continue to do so. I'm a young man, even if I feel like an old codger - I hope to be on screen for at least another two decades. There's lots to learn.

No. I think BBC3 being online has given the opporutnity for so many new voices to be heard. The emergence of shortform online, via BBC3, has started to really allow new voices to shine. I love Ackee and Saltfish, and if it wasn't for BBC3 online, I wouldn't know who these incredibly talented performers are.

Thanks for mincing your words, buddy! I'm not spoonfed my opinion - it's my own. And the BBC is such a huge organisation, I don't even know how "they" would be able to tell me what to say, because the BBC is thousands of people. It's worth saying that that would go against everything that I and the BBC stand for.

Sounds like a cop out but they're affecting in very different ways. That's the truth. Every person I meet, there's something to learn, and equally there's something to take away, and sometimes what you see and encounter stays with you a long time. There's things that have stuck with me, and will be with me for life - sometimes not even on camera.

I have weird encounters every single day - I love them. The encounters are never aggressive or rude - they're familiar and friendly. I feel proud - there's a generation of people who have grown up with me on their tv screens. I feel like I've definitely done something right - I've been in their front room for decades, and that's a privilege. UGetMe is a show I made 15 years ago, for the people late to the party!

That's an easy question to answer. These films are never about infrastructure, never about government, they're about people, always. At their heart, these films are steered by the personal experiences of the people I meet, so to get to the heart of an issue, the people in question are my only guide, and the aim is to tell the stories through the people I meet and what I experience myself. To add to that, I never intend to come up with an answer or some sort of strategy to fix an issue - I just intend to start healthy conversation. If you have questions when the credits are rolling and you want to talk to someone, then the film has done its job.

Possibly heavily researched filmmakers like Michael Moore, who actively go out there, propose good solutions - I'm not that kind of filmmaker. We do research, but we always intend to tell personal stories, rather than fix problems. There's room to find solutions as a documentary filmmaker, but I'm not one of those filmmakers.

I actually made a doc on teen gangs years ago, and it was one of the worst I've made. The reason is that I didn't know what I was doing, I wasn't working with a team I could trust, or that handled me and the topic with care. I don't have any regrets when it comes to getting it wrong, but I do know I've learned so much - I will definitely revisit this with the knowledge and the lessons I've learned to factual. Not only do I pick my team but I also produce - the story is closer to my actual true experience and take on an issue.

What I did learn was that when you're making a film about something close to home, it's important that your voice is reflected in the content. As a young black man making a film about people who look like me on the streets I live on, I learned a lot about letting people telling that story on my behalf, not knowing what it's like to live in that environment. I would never let that happen again.

During my time in Coronation Park I found myself getting increasingly close to the residents, and the leader, she and I had quite a spicy exchange. We disagreed because she believed that white and black South Africans should be able to forgive and forget and move forward - I thought that was a crazy idea, given apartheid, and what the repercussions of that have been. I believe there are always lessons to be learned from history. It's a scary thought, if we had forgotten the lessons from slavery, the Holocaust, if we just forgave and forgot, what would we teach our children about what we got wrong?

The question is flawed really - it should be what's scarier for anyone. These countries being let by Trump and Putin, they're not that different. Russia is an acceleration of what could happen in the States with Trump and his cabinet of billionaires. It's about: what do these regimes mean for all people? That's what we need to focus on.

No. My builder is called Ronnie though, he's a nice geezer. One could make a crack of some description when we were hanging out together.

Yes and no. Yes, because programmes that are made for youth generally are sort of dismissed as bits of fluff. As things not of value. And that winds me up - we were making really special shows that have stayed with the audience. If you're making programmes for children, they're an audience that grows with you. Being called a youth presenter annoys be though because I ain't a kid, but I'm proud of the things I did on Radio 1, MTV... I've done stuff for all age groups. I'm not offended but it does frustrate me because of the negative subtext to what that could mean - people have their noses in the air when they talk about youth programming. Also, millions of people watch it on BBC1 - we've won lots of awards for this 'youth' programme. It's not about whether it's for kids or not - it's whether it's good or not.