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
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.
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.
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.
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.
absolutely catharsis cutting hard none picking
There's a catharsis in cutting down trees. But there's absolutely none of that in picking cotton. It's maddening! It's fiddly, and it pricks your fingers, and it's something that's a very hard skill if you have no alacrity for it.
address along certain granted history massive parts
We take it for granted sometimes that certain parts of our history are told, and we take it for granted that we know all that stuff, and we move forward along on that basis, but there are also massive gaps, and we have to try to address them.
access english finding opened remember school shakespeare taken taking
I loved reading when I was young. I was just completely taken by stories. And I remember taking that into English literature at school and taking that into Shakespeare and finding that opened up a whole world of self-expression to me that I didn't have access to previously.
absolutely among aware rarely struck
I am struck by how, walking down the street, I'm rarely made aware of my race, but that among journalists, race is absolutely massive.
people
Different people approach the universe in different ways, but they also approach their own expectations in different ways.
definite people
If you're looking at people like Patrice Lumumba, you are looking at people who had a very definite plan, and events overran them.