大象传媒

In her 大象传媒 Radio 4 podcast Young Again, journalist and broadcaster Kirsty Young asks fascinating people what advice they would like to give their younger self.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is a BAFTA-winning, Oscar-nominated actor who made his screen debut in Steven Spielberg’s 1997 film Amistad. Since then, he’s appeared in films including 12 Years A Slave, Kinky Boots, The Martian, Doctor Strange, and Children Of Men.

He chats to Kirsty about the way his life changed after his father’s death, his complex feelings on becoming a CBE, and the time he gave Spielberg directing hints. Here are seven things we learned.

Chiwetel Ejiofor found success at a young age. After doing one term at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he won a role in Steven Spielberg’s 1997 movie Amistad when he was 19. It took him a while to realise this wasn’t typical. “When I started, I was so precocious, I suppose,” he says. “Like a lot of young people, you think you know everything or that it’s normal that you’re in a certain situation… It’s only later that you feel, ‘Wow, that was kind of a miracle.’”

On Amistad, which also starred Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins and Morgan Freeman, he was so confident that he gave Spielberg filmmaking advice. “I remember I went up to Spielberg and started talking about how I thought the scene might go! And he was very patient with me.” He has no regrets. “I can laugh at myself, but I also think that’s a wonderful confidence to have and a great place to be.”

2. He wanted to do everything after his dad died

When Chiwetel was 11, he was involved in a car crash in Nigeria, in which his father was killed. Looking back, he says his father’s death spurred his ambition. “I wanted to do it all,” he says. “I had that awareness of the finite nature of things. But I guess one of the things about getting older and having more knowledge about the finite nature of things is it doesn’t mean you have to do everything. You can’t do everything. You become selective.”

One of the best gifts his father gave him was, he says, “a sense of camaraderie. There was an idea that at the end of the day we’re all in this together. That’s a very simple, comforting feeling that I hold still.”

3. He was told to change his name

Chiwetel’s name reflects his Nigerian heritage. As a young actor, he was advised to choose another. “It was a sequence of advice and thoughts that people had come up with about my name,” he says. “It ranged from, ‘You won’t have a career as an actor’ to – and it’s quite funny, this – ‘You’re going to be pigeonholed as playing African parts.’ Even at the time, I thought that was so ludicrous, because obviously I wanted to play African parts. It just didn’t make any sense at all. But obviously that was their perception of what success was. I feel like so much of that has changed since I started acting.”

Chiwetel describes himself as a perfectionist, but he’s getting better at managing that instinct. “Perfectionists are ruled by fear,” he says. “You’re ruled by this fear of failure and of a kind of perceived failure. That’s the driving impetus of everything you’re doing.”

He once found it debilitating, but his view has changed with age. “[I used to think], ‘There has to be absolutely nothing that can be perceived to be wrong with this performance, with this moment. If there is, then that’s terrible’…I’m relieved, having this conversation, that I don’t feel like that now!”

5. He spoke to his grandad before accepting his CBE

In 2008, Chiwetel was awarded an OBE. In 2015, he became a CBE. As the child of immigrants from a country that was once colonised by the British Empire, Chiwetel had mixed feelings when offered the titles.

“I spent a lot of time talking to my grandfather in Nigeria,” he says. “I got the OBE while he was still alive. It’s a remarkable [difference] from where he was seeing the world and…where I was seeing the world.” His grandfather had lived under British rule and see Nigeria gain independence in 1960. He saw his grandson’s title as a sign of progress. “To him, that was an achievement and an indicator of safety, more than anything else. Of safety and status…If the Empire in that capacity existed today, I wouldn’t accept any award within the context of empire, but it doesn’t.”

6. Marvel and Shakespeare have a lot in common

The first lead role Chiwetel played on stage was Othello, in 1995, and he won an Olivier for playing the part again in 2008. He has always loved Shakespeare, even as a child. “There are codes for living in Shakespearian text,” he says.

The parallels may not be obvious, but Chiwetel says performing Shakespeare isn’t so different to performing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (he played Karl Mordo in Doctor Strange). “They’re Shakespearean in their energies and in their stakes,” he says. “I’ve really enjoyed playing in that world. You find yourself with other actors who’ve loved Shakespeare and grown up in a similar way in theatre… Doing scenes in Doctor Strange with Benedict Cumberbatch, and both of us being aware that there is a very Shakespearean undertone to the dynamics and language, I love that.”

7. He wants to reconnect to his young self

Though he laughs at his precocious behaviour when he was younger, at the age of 47 Chiwetel says he’d like to get back into the confident head of that past self. “I want to reconnect with the younger version of myself, where everything is possible; to not lose that spark, that belief that the world is changeable and that you can be part of that change; to not be jaded and allow yourself the freedom of youth, and sometimes the folly of it, and to be bold. Maybe just in bursts.”