Chiwetel Ejiofor
☼ Born on 10 December 1977, in Forest Gate, London, England, UK
Biography
English actor, writer and director Chiwetel Ejiofor is renowned for his portrayal of Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave (2013), for which he received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations, along with the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. He is also known for playing Okwe in Dirty Pretty Things (2002), the Operative in Serenity (2005), Lola in Kinky Boots (2005), Luke in Children of Men (2006), Dr. Adrian Helmsley in 2012 (2009) and Dr. Vincent Kapoor in The Martian (2015).
Chiwetelu Umeadi Ejiofor was born on July 10, 1977 in Forest Gate, London, England, to Nigerian parents, Obiajulu (Okaford), a pharmacist, and Arinze Ejiofor, a doctor. Chiwetel attended Dulwich College in South-East London. By the age of 13, he was appearing in numerous school and National Youth Theatre productions and subsequently attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA).
Ejiofor caught the attention of Steven Spielberg who cast him in the critically acclaimed Amistad (1997) alongside Morgan Freeman and Anthony Hopkins. He has since been seen on the big screen in numerous features including Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things (2002) (for which he won Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards, the Evening Standard Film Awards, and the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards), Love Actually (2003), Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda (2004), Kinky Boots (2005), Inside Man (2006), Children of Men (2006), American Gangster (2007) and Talk to Me (2007), for which his performan
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ce won him an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Ejiofor has balanced his film and television commitments with a number of prestigious stage productions. In 2008, his portrayal of the title role in Michael Grandage's "Othello" at the Donmar Warehouse alongside Ewan McGregor was unanimously commended and won him best actor at the 2008 Laurence Olivier Awards and Evening Standard Theatre Awards. He also received nominations in the South Bank Show Awards and the What's On Stage Theatregoers' Choice Awards in 2009. His other stage roles include Roger Michell's "Blue/Orange" in 2000 which received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play, and the same year Tim Supple's "Romeo and Juliet" in which Ejiofor portrayed the title role.
Following his television debut in the series episode Deadly Voyage (1996), Ejiofor has complimented his film and theatre work on the small screen in productions including Murder in Mind (2001), created by the award-winning writer Anthony Horowitz, Trust (2003), Twelfth Night, or What You Will (2003), and Canterbury Tales (2003). His television appearance in the hard hitting emotional drama Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006) alongside Toni Collette, Sophie Okonedo and Tim Roth earned him a nomination for a Golden Globe Award as well as an NAACP Image award.
Ejiofor also appeared in such notable films as Endgame (2009), Channel 4's moving drama set in South Africa for which his performance earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries; Roland Emmerich's action feature 2012 (2009), opposite John Cusack, Danny Glover and Thandiwe Newton; and Salt (2010), opposite Angelina Jolie and Liev Schreiber. In 2013, he starred in Half of a Yellow Sun (2013) and 12 Years a Slave (2013), receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for the latter film.
In the role of actor
Venom: The Last Dance (25/10/2024)
A fugitive Eddie Brock goes on one last adventure with the alien symbiote living inside him in Venom: The Last Dance. While vacationing in Mexico, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) discovers that he is a wanted fugitive for the apparent death of Detective Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham). However, Mulligan is still alive, having been saved at […]
The Life of Chuck – TIFF 2024 (16/09/2024)
During the end of the world, billboards begin appearing thanking an accountant for 39 great years in The Life of Chuck. Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a schoolteacher whose classes begin to dwindle due to seemingly apocalyptic events in the world. Marty begins to see billboards and advertisements congratulating Charles Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) on “39 […]
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (13/05/2022)
A new threat emerges that threatens the multiverse in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. When an interdimensional threat arrives in New York City, Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) comes into contact with America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a young woman with the ability to travel between universes. This sets the stage for a battle […]
The Magic Life of V (05/05/2019)
A young Finnish woman attends LARPing events to escape the traumatic events of her childhood in The Magic Life of V. Veera is a young woman from Finland, who is struggling to cope with childhood memories of her alcoholic father, while also caring for her mentally disabled brother Ville. As a means of escape, Veera […]
Doctor Strange (05/11/2016)
A injured surgeon becomes a master in the mystical arts in Doctor Strange. Dr. Stephen Strange is a gifted, yet arrogant, neurosurgeon who works at a hospital with fellow surgeon and girlfriend Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams). After a near-fatal car accident, Strange ends up with extreme nerve damage in his hands. Desperate for a cure, Strange […]
The Martian (07/10/2015)
An astronaut finds himself stranded on the surface of Mars in The Martian. Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is a botanist on the Ares III mission to Mars, lead by commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain). When a storm results in an emergency evacuation, Mark is hit with debris and presumed dead. However, it turns out that Mark survived […]
Z for Zachariah (30/08/2015)
A farmer who has survived the apocalypse gets into a love triangle with two fellow survivors in Z for Zachariah. Ann Burden (Margot Robbie) is the apparent sole survivor of a nuclear apocalypse, with the valley housing her family farm being sheltered from the radiation of the outside world. One day, Ann comes across another survivor […]
12 Years a Slave (01/12/2013)
From director Steve McQueen (Shame) comes the historical drama 12 Years a Slave. Based on true events, the film tells the story of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man living Saratoga Springs, New York in the 1840s. A skilled violin player, Northup is lured away by two men offering a touring gig in […]
2012 (15/11/2009)
Even though I think of the whole “2012 End of the World” scenario to be the latest in a series of apocalyptic conspiracy theories that pop up every decade or two (remember Y2K?), I do have to agree that Roland Emmerich can make a pretty gosh darn good disaster film. I found the film was […]
American Gangster (03/11/2007)
Celebrity sighting aside, what did I actually think of the film? I can definitely say that it is NOT this year’s Departed. It’s not bad film, but I thought it was a very formulaic film. The entire plot goes back and forth between Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe‘s stories. The stories don’t even begin to […]