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" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

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" I didn't know anything about '12 Years a Slave.' Not the book, not Solomon Northup, which I was quite shocked by, once I'd read it, that it wasn't a seminal text. I think it deserves to be. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" I feel that I don't have to wait around for good scripts anymore, that I can get things moving more quickly. I can ring up directors I like and say I'm keen to work with them, which is pretty great. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

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

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

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

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" When I first had my eyebrows waxed, I was pretty disturbed. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" The idea of making a film - a film that I had certainly never seen before - about the slave experience was a huge responsibility. It's a project that requires a wider understanding of the geopolitical nature of the slave trade, of historical and modern-day racism. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

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

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" 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. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" The truth is, it's a totalitarian dictatorship when you're making films. You are the boss. You can listen to other people, and it can be a benevolent dictatorship, but it's a dictatorship nonetheless. A lot of directors go past their first experience, that's what they've come away with. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" I had done a couple of auditions for 'Amistad' and didn't feel it was going to go any further - and then the call came about heading to Los Angeles to work with Steven Spielberg. It was surreal: exciting, challenging, overwhelming. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor

" As a child, I was just never that interested in the lives of my favourite actors, like Cary Grant. I do wonder whether knowing too much about someone's personal life interrupts an audience's ability to suspend disbelief, to really invest in the characters. My preference would always be that people engage with the work. "

Chiwetel Ejiofor