Chiwetel Ejiofor
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Chiwetel Ejiofor, CBE, is a British actor. After enrolling at the National Youth Theatre in 1995, and gaining a scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, at age 19 and three months into his course, Ejiofor was cast by Steven Spielberg to play a supporting part in the film Amistad as James Covey...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth10 July 1977
Chiwetel Ejiofor quotes about
reading emotional thinking
I try to just be open to what the next experience is and how it makes me feel, just reading a project, or trying to get involved with a project, or thinking about a project, and what particular emotional flavor that brings. To me, it's never really about planning the next thing, or the career arc. It's about investigating how I feel, from project to project, and finding things that I haven't explored and what that would be like.
lucky gigs way
I was always lucky that I've always had a gig, I'm fortunate in that way.
imagination world film
Ridley creates a very immersive world, so when you walk up to a Ridley Scott film set you're in Ridley Scott's imagination, and it's a really comfortable, cool place to be.
thinking kind film
The thing about film is it is a very precise form. You know if you have it and you know if you don't have it. There's not really a middle bit where you're like, "I think we kind of have that scene."
actors film theater
I fell in love with film. I didn't start out to be a film actor. I wanted to be a theater actor.
wall actors directors
I would love to be a fly on the wall watching other directors and actors to see what their process is like.
home mind ends
All roads lead home in the end. You've got to keep that in mind always - in your work and in your life.
together pieces narrative
When I worked with Woody Allen, I only got the parts of the script that I was in. I was able to piece together the narrative from that, but I remember being quite excited to watch the movie - the movie that I was in but didn't know what happened in, like, 65 percent of.
certainly experience historical huge nature project requires seen slave understanding wider
The idea of making a film - a film that I had certainly never seen before - about the slave experience was a huge responsibility. It's a project that requires a wider understanding of the geopolitical nature of the slave trade, of historical and modern-day racism.
attracted
I was attracted to 'Half of a Yellow Sun' because of the story.
artistic clearly life people tend unless worse
I don't tend to offer up a critique unless I have a clearly formulated alternative, because there's nothing worse than people on a set or any kind of artistic life who critique something but who don't have anything to offer.
calling felt human incredibly respect slave somebody
From deep in the slave hut is somebody calling over 150 years to all of our experiences and all of our ideas on human respect, and all of our ideas on dignity. And I felt like that's just incredibly powerful.
angeles auditions call came further heading los steven work
I had done a couple of auditions for 'Amistad' and didn't feel it was going to go any further - and then the call came about heading to Los Angeles to work with Steven Spielberg. It was surreal: exciting, challenging, overwhelming.
believer great human knowledge reaction
I've always been a believer in research. It's great to have an instinctual human reaction to a character, too, of course, but it has to be countered with knowledge and understanding.