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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
We always want to live in an environment where there’s no artificial block to good work. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
I can watch a film, even a film that I’ve been in, and think, ‘I’m not sure, 100 percent, what I think about it.’ I’m not sure what I think about what I’ve done in it. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
I’d never really considered film. If I’d thought about film more growing up, I probably would have changed my name. I had no concept of my name in lights. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
I’ve 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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
I love the theater community and theater life, and would love to figure out the distinctive differences between Broadway and the West End. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
Friends at school were always quite shocked that we holidayed in Nigeria, but it was all pretty middle-class, really. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
The Second World War simplified things like race, and people came down on very clear lines. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
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. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
