Chiwetel Ejiofor Quotes

In England, there's no acknowledgement the invention of slavery came from Britain.

I've 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.

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.

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.

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

I've always liked the idea of being a father. And I've 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.

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."

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

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.

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

Dividing everybody into genders and sexuality and races and religions, and I think it's 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.

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.

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've always been a believer in research. It's great to have an instinctual human reaction to a character, too, of course, but it has to be countered with knowledge and understanding.

I think that all the talented filmmakers sort of share, I think, a sense of allowing magic to happen; of creating a stable and secure environment for performers to feel they can push to the end of their ability.

From deep in the slave hut is somebody calling over 150 years to all of our experiences and all of our ideas on human respect, and all of our ideas on dignity. And I felt like that's just incredibly powerful.

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.

Solomon Northup is one of the most remarkable people I've 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.

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.

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.

I love the theater community and theater life, and would love to figure out the distinctive differences between Broadway and the West End.

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.

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.

You do as much research as you can for any project.

My music tastes are often 20 years behind.

I have an evolving relationship with my father, and his memory, especially the older I get. I know that some of the things that interested him are things that interest me.

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

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.

I started off doing plays as a theater actor. But I never thought of it in terms of it leading anywhere. I was just trying to be the best actor that I could be in the context of what I was doing.

London and L.A. are both places I feel I can call home. It's a nice balance of Californian calm and that slightly more engaged, electric London vibe that I've always loved.

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

I was probably 14 or 15 when I was first on stage at school doing 'Measure for Measure.' I immediately felt it was a great way of expressing oneself at a moment when I didn't think I could express myself, really. I suddenly had access to this range of emotions and thoughts and feelings that were there in me. I was surprised by that.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I think when I was doing 'Amistad,' I was just too young to really understand what the process was, and beyond that, I hadn't really got involved. It was just somehow - and I thought that the artistry was all in the theater.

I started, obviously, doing theater, and I always thought that I would; in a way, I always thought that I'd be a theater actor. When I was starting out, I didn't really plan on making films, actually.

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

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.

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

I think fear is a very healthy motivator.

I can watch a film, even a film that I've been in, and think, 'I'm not sure, 100 percent, what I think about it.' I'm not sure what I think about what I've done in it.

I'm constantly looking to see whether I look the same as I did earlier, whether I've put on or lost any weight.

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

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

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.

As an actor, you express certain things because they need to be expressed, and then you don't really feel a need to do it again. I want to feel something else, you know?

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 was able to go on stage and work until it felt right or felt good. It meant that I very quickly realised that it was the job for me.

I feel that audiences are very sophisticated, and part of my challenge is to keep them engaged because they are so complex.

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.

I wouldn't be the same actor if I couldn't do theater.

I'm in favor of anything that promotes greener solutions.

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

Sometimes television can just jump from one bit of plot to the next, and the words fill in the in-between.

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

There are many different ways the public can respond to actors - they can see you on TV and feel they know you and own you, and there can be something quite cornering about that.

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.