Chiwetel Ejiofor Quotations

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.

It's a strange thing, but you get this click in your brain; the wonderful feeling that the entirety of a character is suddenly available and accessible to you.

I was attracted to 'Half of a Yellow Sun' because of the story.

I was already devouring literature and I was the ripe old age of 15 when I decided to be an actor. I just thought plays were the most fantastic way of expressing life. I thought I'd discovered Shakespeare - 'hey, there's a new guy in town, don't know if anyone's read him.' I was just excited about the whole thing, from day one.

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.

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.

You do as much research as you can for any project.

I wanted to be an actor ever since I got on stage for the first time, aged 13. Before that, I thought I might follow in the medical footsteps of my parents: my father was a doctor, my mother a pharmacist.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I like to disappear into a role. I equate the success of it with a feeling of being chemically changed. That's the only way I can express it.

I was the classic middle child in some ways, the one who could have been a priest in an alternate universe.

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.

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.

Different people approach the universe in different ways, but they also approach their own expectations in different ways.

If you're looking at people like Patrice Lumumba, you are looking at people who had a very definite plan, and events overran them.

In England, theres no acknowledgement the invention of slavery came from Britain.

It's hard to tell the story if you're not involved yourself, emotionally.

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.

The Second World War simplified things like race, and people came down on very clear lines.

We always want to live in an environment where there's no artificial block to good work.

David Mamet was great to work with. He was everything that I thought he would be as a director. He's incredibly articulate, an easy collaborator. Extraordinarily knowledgeable about film and writing.

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.

Since I started acting, I always or often find work takes precedence with me. And that is not necessarily a great rule for life.

Solomon Northup is one of the most remarkable people I've ever encountered in my life; one of the most amazing stories I have ever been in any kind of contact with. To not tell that story would have been disgraceful, in my opinion.

I have an evolving relationship with my father, and his memory, especially the older I get. I know that some of the things that interested him are things that interest me.

I feel that I don't have to wait around for good scripts anymore, that I can get things moving more quickly. I can ring up directors I like and say I'm keen to work with them, which is pretty great.

Friends at school were always quite shocked that we holidayed in Nigeria, but it was all pretty middle-class, really.

I enjoyed being in California for a while. But that's the thing about London: you can't really shake it. I've always had the impression when I was in L.A. for long periods of time that simultaneously my life was happening somewhere else, and I'm missing it.

London and L.A. are both places I feel I can call home. It's a nice balance of Californian calm and that slightly more engaged, electric London vibe that I've always loved.

I was able to go on stage and work until it felt right or felt good. It meant that I very quickly realised that it was the job for me.

I think when I was doing 'Amistad,' I was just too young to really understand what the process was, and beyond that, I hadn't really got involved. It was just somehow - and I thought that the artistry was all in the theater.

I think that all the talented filmmakers sort of share, I think, a sense of allowing magic to happen; of creating a stable and secure environment for performers to feel they can push to the end of their ability.

I think, as a younger actor, you are more open to the experience. And to an extent, you want to go into things blind and energised as if you were 15. Keep that terror.

I still have to say that I did 'Dirty Pretty Things' 11 years ago. That was a very sudden shift in my life and my relationship to my work, and it didn't feel it was impossible to make a film like that.

I was probably 14 or 15 when I was first on stage at school doing 'Measure for Measure.' I immediately felt it was a great way of expressing oneself at a moment when I didn't think I could express myself, really. I suddenly had access to this range of emotions and thoughts and feelings that were there in me. I was surprised by that.

That's a tough question to answer. I thought the look worked extremely well. I don't know whether that means I looked pretty, but I thought I looked like Lola would look, as opposed to what I would look like with a little bit of hair and makeup on. You know?

There are many different ways the public can respond to actors - they can see you on TV and feel they know you and own you, and there can be something quite cornering about that.

Ive just tried to keep my eyes open, tried to read everything you can, and tried to see whether I see myself within it. If I do, then I can get excited about it.

The only way to be an actor is to find ways to work as an actor, even if that means doing a one-man show by a river.

A lot of people ask me about my father's passing when I was young, which I'm never comfortable with. I invariably move around that subject.

I started working as an actor, semi-professionally, when I was 16, and got my first professional gig at 19. I guess I've kind of worked pretty consistently since then.

I became an actor by doing school plays and youth theaters, and then National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. And then I did study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For me that was a good way to enter the field, to work in the theater.

Depending on what your interest in theater is, I always recommend working on plays. It's a great way to be introduced to the field, and also a great way to be seen by agents and representation. I'm also a great advocate for studying acting at a drama school or a college.

When I first had my eyebrows waxed, I was pretty disturbed.

I feel that audiences are very sophisticated, and part of my challenge is to keep them engaged because they are so complex.

Reporters tend to launch on what seems to be the clearest, most stark aspects of someone's life in terms of an interview.

Ive always liked the idea of being a father. And Ive always romanticised it, because I lost my father when I was young. In a way, all of the complications that come with my career are about that.

Solomon Northup is one of the most remarkable people Ive ever encountered in my life; one of the most amazing stories I have ever been in any kind of contact with. To not tell that story would have been disgraceful, in my opinion.

There's always something ridiculous happening on the set, especially when people get tired because of the long days.

Dividing everybody into genders and sexuality and races and religions, and I think its important to have films out there, to have discussions out there which really try to get to grips with where that kind of thing can lead.

I wouldnt be the same actor if I couldnt do theater.

I've always enjoyed doing a huge variety of roles, which I think helps, instead of settling for the things I might be most comfortable with.

I enjoy doing everything, comedy and drama. I just look for the characters really and what they offer.

Steve MCQueen created an entire family to tell one man's tale and I am delighted that so many of this family have also been recognised today. I am hugely grateful to the Academy for this great honour, and, of course, to Solomon Northup for sharing his story through his breathtaking book.

I think I enjoy working obviously as a lead, but also you know I feel I'm also a character actor as well, so I enjoy approaching various projects in all sort of capacities. Any film I have been able to do I feel very fortunate to have been a part of.

Id never really considered film. If Id thought about film more growing up, I probably would have changed my name. I had no concept of my name in lights.

My favorite thing to cook is anything that comes out okay. I'm very fond of certain pastas and sauces that I can just about cook from scratch. So those are what I like to cook, as well as roasted potatoes and chicken. Anything that tastes alright.

I've often had the fortune to work on projects with a small theme I find very interesting enough to pursue and to be passionate about in the context of the story, then it may turn out there's a universality about my character which still resonates with many people as well.

I remember being very affected by what was going on there towards the end of Apartheid. And the subject is still very pertinent, politically, to what's happening around the world today, in terms of negotiating peace talks. I had always been interested in this period of change in South Africa, generally, for a variety of reasons.

I think Africa will have a crisper impact on Europe, as it has traditionally, and then that will filter into the American cultural psyche, in the way that India has.

I think the crucial thing about being an actor is to be doing it.

I believe people instinctively know that about writing, yet people get confused about that when it comes to acting.

I don't ever feel like I've had a moment where I am like, "There it is; perfect and holy in all ways."

My father, Arinze Ejiofor , was a musician and a doctor. Nobody's ever asked me about that combination and what growing up in that environment was like.

I'm in favor of anything that promotes greener solutions.

That global poverty would end. That people would be able to eat. It's the worst shame in the world that people go hungry.

I have always been very fortunate in my working life in terms of the, I say that like I've not been fortunate at all in my private life.

Working in this industry, I do feel that science and creativity turned out to be a very useful combination for me.

I'm constantly looking to see whether I look the same as I did earlier, whether I've put on or lost any weight.

I am aware that I have been incredibly fortunate in my life to work with the people that I have worked with and pursue the projects that I have been able to do. There are so many films that I have done that I really, as a film person, as a film fan, that I like. And that is a nice place to think of a career in.

I'm constantly discovering things. Like Bobby Bland. Right now I suppose I'm into the Eighties, which turned out to be a great musical period.

My music tastes are often 20 years behind.

I do like sci-fi. When I was a kid, I was always sort of locked into sci-fi stories. So, sci-fi has always had a special place in my heart.

I started off doing plays as a theater actor. But I never thought of it in terms of it leading anywhere. I was just trying to be the best actor that I could be in the context of what I was doing.

I think fear is a very healthy motivator.

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.

I was always lucky that I've always had a gig, I'm fortunate in that way.

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.

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."

I fell in love with film. I didn't start out to be a film actor. I wanted to be a theater actor.

I would love to be a fly on the wall watching other directors and actors to see what their process is like.

All roads lead home in the end. You've got to keep that in mind always - in your work and in your life.

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.

The three hours of makeup put me in the mood every morning. That was easy. As soon as you get into the dresses and the hair, you feel the transformation starting. If only all my characters could be so clear.

Reading the script, I had a strong feeling for the character. She has this brassy, cabaret quality, but she wears her heart on her sleeve, and I thought she was one of the most captivating characters I'd ever read.

Normally, if you're lucky, the idea of a film you have in your head is more or less what you get back when you see it after the editing and the whole post-production process.

I've always liked the idea of being a father. And I've always romanticised it, because I lost my father when I was young. In a way, all of the complications that come with my career are about that.

As an actor, you express certain things because they need to be expressed, and then you don't really feel a need to do it again. I want to feel something else, you know?

Sometimes television can just jump from one bit of plot to the next, and the words fill in the in-between.

I love the theater community and theater life, and would love to figure out the distinctive differences between Broadway and the West End.

As a child, I was just never that interested in the lives of my favourite actors, like Cary Grant. I do wonder whether knowing too much about someone's personal life interrupts an audience's ability to suspend disbelief, to really invest in the characters. My preference would always be that people engage with the work.

I started, obviously, doing theater, and I always thought that I would; in a way, I always thought that I'd be a theater actor. When I was starting out, I didn't really plan on making films, actually.

I look at scripts really for whether they can be moving or penetrate some kind of truth. You are constantly chasing that feeling as an actor when every part of a production comes together.

I didn't know anything about '12 Years a Slave.' Not the book, not Solomon Northup, which I was quite shocked by, once I'd read it, that it wasn't a seminal text. I think it deserves to be.

The history of slavery and the complication of slavery is that it is an international concept. It is something that affected people who were our people. For example, there were people from the west of Nigeria who were taken by the hundreds of thousands and brought to Louisiana. I'm Igbo; my family is Igbo. So it is a story that I'm connected to.

The truth is, it's a totalitarian dictatorship when you're making films. You are the boss. You can listen to other people, and it can be a benevolent dictatorship, but it's a dictatorship nonetheless. A lot of directors go past their first experience, that's what they've come away with.