Quotes by Chiwetel Ejiofor

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.

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Wisdom

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.

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Wisdom

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.

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Wisdom

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.

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Success

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

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Wisdom

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

Success

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

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Life

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

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Wisdom

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

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Wisdom

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

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Wisdom

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

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Wisdom

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

Wisdom

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

Success

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.

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Success

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

Life

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.

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Life

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

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Success

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.

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Life

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

Life

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

Wisdom

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

Success

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

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Happiness

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

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Wisdom

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

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

Friendship