The Interview: Chiwetel Ejiofor

2008-05-02
By Sergio Mims

Born in London to immigrant Nigerian parents, Chiwetel Ejiofor has become, in a very short time, one of the most familiar faces in movies in the past decade. Ejiofor started acting when he was 13 in elementary school Shakespeare productions (he recently finished a critically acclaimed run in Othello at the Donmar Warehouse in London), he has accumulated an astonishing number award winning theatrical roles and has become one of the busiest actors on both sides of the Atlantic with major roles in films such as Four Brothers, Talk to Me, Inside Man, American Gangster.  In his latest film Redbelt, by acclaimed playwright and director David Mamet, Ejiofor plays the lead role of a martial arts instructor who gets caught up in a web of lies and deceit from both the competitive fighting world and Hollywood.

During a promotional tour for the film Ebonyjet.com had an opportunity to talk with Ejifor about Shakespeare, working with famous directors and his approach to acting.

Ebonyjet.com: Obvious question first: did you get hurt while making Redbelt?
Chiwetel Ejiofor: (Laughs) No I didn’t get hurt.  I was very fortunate. But I had some great people working with me. It wasn’t just stunt guys. It was also ju-jitsu practitioners who were aware that I was a novice and secondly, they were aware that the nature of their sport is that they have to spar and get into positions all the time that if you apply too much pressure you could really injure your opponent, which is why it is a submission sport. So you always get to the brink if you’re about to win, let’s say, with someone on the mat, then all you need to do is get into the position, into the winning move and that’s the end of the match.

EBJ: What surprised you the most about this style of fighting that you didn’t expect?
CE: I suppose the philosophy of the fighting is so important to the style of fighting and that who you are as a person can define how good a fighter you are. That was major.

EBJ: So this is your first American Hollywood film in which you’re the lead actor. Do you feel any pressure or is it a different experience?
CE: Really?  Never thought of it that way. I don’t feel any pressure. Not really no. With that I mean the pressure just comes I guess when you’re just doing the part, preparing for the role and so on. But I don’t feel any sense of pressure now. The pressure was back then.

EBJ: Hearing your accent made me remember again that you’re British since you’ve played so many Americans in movies. Was it hard to master an American accent,  to tune your ear?
CE: Well when I started out I was, of course, working with a dialect coach initially. I did that for a little while and then just tried to listen and learn. And you know when I was growing up American television was very big in England, so I was familiar with the sound of an American accent . And of course the more you do it the easier it gets.

EBJ: How did you get interested in acting?
CE: I just liked the idea of self investigation. Of it being an art form where you get to work out who you are as well as what the writer  is discussing in their work. And I think that was the first thing that got me excited about acting.

EBJ: And how old were you when you started?
CE: About 13, 14. I started in school doing Shakespearian plays and going to the National Youth Theater and The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. From there I was in the game.

EBJ: Speaking of Shakespeare, both he and David Mamet are similar in that they both use very precise, carefully crafted  language and there’s a distinctive rhythm to the dialogue in their works. Do you find that true as well?
CE: They definitely have a similarity. The real trick with any kind of classical text is to keep the rhythm of it but to make it sound natural. That’s the thing and in Shakespeare it’s very important to attack the rhythm with a sort of naturalism that doesn’t interrupt the flow of the words,  so when the words are released it becomes  quite magical.

And I think the same thing applies to Mamet. An important part of it is to hear those rhythms, and having had experience with iambic pentameter in the classical Shakespearian rhythms helped me in coming in to this film.

EBJ: Your first film was Amistad directed by Steven Spielberg. Since then, in a very short time, you’ve worked with some really A-list major directors such as Ridley Scott (American Gangster), Spike Lee (The Inside Man), Woody Allen (Melinda and Melinda)  Aflonso Curaon, (Children of Men) Stephen Frears (Dirty Pretty Things) and now David Mamet.  There are actors who’ve been in the business much longer than you who don’t have a resume that impressive. Is that a conscious choice or just the luck of the draw?
CE: (Laughs) I wish it was on purpose. Yeah it’s been extraordinary. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with the people that I have, and that’s been very exciting. I wish I could have designed it that way but I don’ t think that’s possible.  All you can do is wait for the scripts to come in.  I guess I was born under a lucky star.

EBJ: What’s the common factor that you’ve found working with the great directors  as you have?
CE: More than anything it’s taste (laughs), in a word, and passion and an ability to convey their ideas in a format that is possible to understand and influence. And some of those are the reasons why they are so talented and visionary as directors. And I think time and time again they have proven their ability to work within the visual narrative. It’s hard to do that. It requires a lot of skill and imagination, patience and forthrightness  and they have those things.

EBJ: So what attracts you to a certain script?
CE: For me it’s character. I love playing characters that I find interesting that I find intriguing and I think an audience will respond to it. That starts the major beginning of anything. And then the entire story has to work, and I believe in the story, and the story kicks off, and I get involved with the script, and I care about it. And that for me is the most important thing. If I care about these people whatever they’re doing then sure, I’m in.

You read through the script and you’re reading the part they want you to play, and suddenly there’s a part in you that smiles in your soul and you say: “I always wanted to do this!” You didn’t consciously know that is what you wanted to do. If it sparks that thing inside you and you’re like :”Oh yeah, why didn’t I listen to that voice?” so then you go on the journey to discovering that.

EBJ: Then would you say that you’re finding elements within yourself that you’ve never explored before?
CE: Hmm that’s a good question. I don’t know if I have or not. I don’t imagine I have. But then I don’t know what the ‘self” is. I don’t know if we’re composed of a number of different things and we become aware of parts of ourselves when we’re acting. I don’t know. So maybe the answer is yes in that circumstance. Maybe the answer is we are one thing and through acting we can discover the things that we are,  to realizing something different, or more, or extra.

EBJ: There has been some argument from a few in the business that black British actors such as you and Idris Elba have been taking important roles way from African-American actors. Have you heard this criticism?
CE: Hmmm, I haven’t no. It’s not that way in any industry, and certainly not the way the film industry operates. It’s not set up to accommodate a certain national identity in this way. The point is that a director sets out to find the person that he envisioned and won’t, and shouldn’t if the director is worth his salt, have any parameters about that. He will find the person anywhere in the world if he wants to find a certain actor to do a certain role.  And that’s the give and take of the artistic community internationally and has been since movies started.

You have American actors going over to England and doing films and traveling all over the world. I remember Denzel Washington doing Queen and Country in England and he did Steven Biko in Cry Freedom in South Africa, and Forest Whitaker playing a British soldier in The Crying Game and of course Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. There’s an internationalism of characters and parts.

EBJ: When you started your acting career was it ever suggested to you to change your name?
CE: That’s a good question.  Yeah there was a character once who made an implicit suggestion that a simpler name might be good which I wasn’t particularity interested in doing. I can’t say why. I figured I wanted to have my name. How else would anybody know it was me? (laughs)

EBJ: Finally, what’s your approach or philosophy towards acting?
CE: I don’t have a philosophy about acting. I don’t think so. I do feel that it’s a complex profession and that you do have to try to gauge your work and life and what the two things do for each other. And if I had a philosophy of acting it would be that to improve as an actor you have to experience life as well and just not movie sets.

Film critic, lecturer and festival consultant Sergio Mims covers all things film from the city that works, Chicago. He is a regular contributor to ebonyjet.com
 
Photos: imdb.com