Chiwetel Ejiofor,
OBE ( ; born 10 July 1974) is a
British
actor. In 2006 he received 2
Golden Globe nominations for
Best
Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture and
Best
Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series.
Early years
Ejiofor
was born in London
's Forest Gate
to Nigerian
parents who
belonged to the Igbo ethnic
group. His father, Arinze, was a doctor, and his mother,
Obiajulu, was a pharmacist.
He began acting in school plays at the age of
thirteen at Dulwich
College
and joined the National Youth Theatre and played the
title role in Othello at the
Bloomsbury
Theatre
in September 1995, and again at the Theatre Royal,
Glasgow
in 1996 when he starred opposite Rachael Stirling, who played
Desdemona.
Career
Ejiofor made his film debut in the television movie
Deadly Voyage in 1996. He went on to
become a prominent stage actor in London. In
Steven Spielberg's
Amistad, he gave memorable support to
Djimon Hounsou's Cinque as
interpreter Ens. James Covey. In 1999, he appeared in the British
film
G:MT, in
which he appeared nude as he walked towards the camera.
In 2000,
he starred in Blue/Orange at
the Royal National
Theatre
(Cottesloe stage), and later at the Duchess Theatre
. That same year, his performance as Romeo in
William Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet was
nominated for the
Ian Charleson
Award. Ejiofor was awarded the Jack Tinker Award for Most
Promising Newcomer at the 2000
Critics' Circle Theatre
Awards. For his performance in
Blue/Orange, he
received the 2000
London Evening
Standard Theatre Award for Outstanding Newcomer and a 2001
nomination for the
Laurence Olivier
Theatre Award Best Supporting Actor.
Ejiofor had his first leading film role in the 2002's
Dirty Pretty Things, for
which he won a
British Independent Film
Award for best actor. He also starred in a 2003 BBC adaptation
of
Chaucer's The Knight's Tale. He starred
alongside
Hilary Swank in 2004's
Red Dust, portraying
the fictional politician Alex Mpondo of post-
apartheid South
Africa. He played the central part of
Prince Alamayou in Peter Spafford's radio
play
I was a stranger, broadcast on
BBC Radio 4 on 17 May 2004. He also received
acclaim for his performance as a complex antagonist
The
Operative in the 2005 movie
Serenity. Ejiofor played a
revolutionary in the highly acclaimed 2006 film
Children of Men. His singing and acting
performance in
Kinky
Boots received
Golden Globe
and British Independent Film Award nominations. He was also
nominated for the 2006
BAFTA
Rising Star Award, which recognises emerging British film
talent. Ejiofor's performance in
Tsunami: The Aftermath received
a 2007 Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a miniseries or
film made for TV.
In 2007, he starred opposite
Don Cheadle
in
Talk to Me, a
film based on the true story about
Ralph "Petey"
Greene (played by Cheadle), an African American radio
personality in the '60s and '70s.
He performed on stage in The Seagull at the Royal Court
Theatre
from 18 January to 17 March 2007.
He has roles in four films in 2007 and 2008:
Toussaint,
American Gangster,
Tonight at Noon and
Redbelt. Ejiofor is considered one
of the leading candidates to play
T'Challa
in the proposed
Black Panther
movie based on the Marvel comic books character.
In 2007, he reprised his role as
Othello at the Donmar Warehouse,
alongside
Kelly Reilly as
Desdemona, and
Ewan McGregor as
Iago. The
production received favorable reviews, with particularly strong
praise for Ejiofor. "Chiwetel Ejiofor produces one of the most
memorable performances of Othello in recent years". He was awarded
the
Laurence Olivier Award
for Best Actor for his performance.
He was appointed
Officer of the Order
of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.In the
same year, he made his directorial debut in the short film,
Slapper, which he also wrote, based on an idea by
editor/director Yusuf Pirhasan.
He
portrayed White
House
Scientific Advisor Adrian
Helmsley in 2012, a disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich and released November 13,
2009.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
- Awards
- Nominations
References
- Raphael, Amy. "Almost famous", The
Guardian, 3 November 2002. Accessed 9 July 2007.
- Chiwetel Ejiofor: it's always the quiet ones... -
Telegraph
- Talk to Me, FocusFeatures.com. Accessed 29
July 2007.
- Press reviews: Othello, bbc.co.uk.
Accessed 5 December 2007
External links
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