| Chiwetel Ejiofor | |
|---|---|
Ejiofor at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Redbelt |
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| Born | Chiwetelu Umeadi Ejiofor 10 July 1977 Forest Gate, London, England, UK |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1995–present |
Chiwetelu Umeadi "Chiwetel" Ejiofor,[1] OBE (pronounced /ˈtʃuːwɨtɛl ˈɛdʒi.oʊfɔr/ chew-i-tel ej-i-oh-for;[2] born 10 July 1977)[1][3] is an English actor of stage and screen. He has received numerous acting awards and award nominations, including the 2006 BAFTA Awards Rising Star, three Golden Globe Awards' nominations, and the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in Othello.
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Ejiofor was born in London's Forest Gate, to Nigerian parents who belonged to the Igbo ethnic group.[4] His father, Arinze, was a doctor, and his mother, Obiajulu, was a pharmacist. In 1988, when Ejiofor was 11, tragedy occurred during a family trip to Nigeria for a wedding. After the celebrations, his father and Ejiofor were driving to Lagos, when their car was involved in a head-on crash with a lorry. His father was killed, but Ejiofor survived despite being badly injured, receiving the trademark scars on his forehead.[5][6] Ejiofor began acting in school plays at the age of thirteen at Dulwich College and joined the National Youth Theatre. He 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.
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 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. In the following year, he was part of the ensemble cast of Love Actually, starred in a BBC adaptation of Chaucer's The Knight's Tale and also starred in the BBC series Trust. 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, and he played the god Dionysus, alongside Paul Scofield's Cadmus and Diana Rigg's Agave, in Andrew Rissik's play, Dionysus, based upon Euripides' Bacchae, also broadcast by the BBC. 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,[7] 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.
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".[8] 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.[9] 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.[10]
Ejiofor was the lead alongside John Cusack in the 2009 film 2012. The film went on to gross over 700 million dollars, and is among the list of highest-grossing films of all time and placing 5th of top films of 2009.
| Year(s) of appearance |
Work | Role | Awards and nominations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Macbeth (first performed c. 1607) by William Shakespeare |
Malcolm | |
| 1999 | Sparkleshark (first performed 1993) by Philip Ridley |
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| 2000 | Blue/Orange (2000) by Joe Penhall |
Chris | Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer, 2000 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards Outstanding Newcomer, 2000 London Evening Standard Theatre Award |
| Romeo and Juliet (c. 1595) by William Shakespeare |
Romeo | Nomination: Ian Charleson Award | |
| Peer Gynt (first performed 1876) by Henrik Ibsen |
Young Peer | ||
| 2002 | The Vortex (first performed 1924) by Noël Coward Donmar Warehouse, London |
Nicky Lancaster | |
| 2007 | The Seagull (1895) by Anton Chekhov (2007 translation by Christopher Hampton) The Royal Court, London |
Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin | |
| Othello (c. 1603) by William Shakespeare |
Othello | 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor |
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