Chiwetel Ejiofor Quotes

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

I like to disappear into a role. I equate the success of it with a feeling of being chemically changed.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When you're no longer seeing yourself, in some ways. You're as close to being as you can be.I suppose that's consistent with the moment that the mind actually turns off, and is no longer questioning what you're doing. When the questions stop, that's when the real acting takes over. And trying to get to the point where the questions stop, "Would I do this? How do I feel about that as a character?" When those stop, and it's just doing X, Y, and zed, because that's what you'd do as this character, because you're inside this character somehow - that's when it really kicks off.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Certainly what constitutes a stage actor, what constitutes a film actor, I don't even know what that is. And both things are very accurate, in a sense. In terms of people's needs to concentrate on race, I wonder if it's completely necessary, but it's not something that is so dynamically relevant to me that I feel it should be one thing or another.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

My music tastes are often 20 years behind.

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

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.

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

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

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 like finding things out beforehand, because I'm nervous in disposition, and I worry that if I don't do anything, then I'll turn up and I still won't really have a sense of it, and it might be too late. So I like to get things as organized as I possibly can in my own head, to apply myself to the work before arriving to a late-in-the-day rehearsal, or in extreme cases, the first day on set.