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
pride awards joy
This is going to sound completely absurd, but I do sometimes feel like the enjoyment of an awards ceremony or the pride in the finished article hasn't ever surpassed the joy of doing the work, of making it. The doing it is really the bit I'm there for.
great life scripts spend traveling trying weird
It's a weird thing when you spend your life trying to find these great scripts and great parts. You are reading scripts, you are traveling the world, you are hassling your agent. You are trying to find that script.
artificial environment good work
We always want to live in an environment where there's no artificial block to good work.
came clear people second simplified war
The Second World War simplified things like race, and people came down on very clear lines.
inherited perspective stories tradition
The inherited tradition is that we don't tell stories about slavery from the perspective of the slave. It's told through the president or the lawyer.
hard
It's hard to tell the story if you're not involved yourself, emotionally.
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.
people
Different people approach the universe in different ways, but they also approach their own expectations in different ways.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.