Chiwetel Ejiofor
Biography
Born in Forest Gate in London, Chiwetel Ejiofor is a British actor and director who started in school plays and joined the National Youth Theatre in 1995. He left the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art after his first year when Steven Spielberg cast him in Amistad (1997). He won a British Independent Film Award for Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and a Laurence Olivier Award for his Othello in 2008. He earned the BAFTA Award for Best Actor and an Academy Award nomination for playing Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave (2013). His films include Love Actually (2003), Kinky Boots (2005), Serenity (2005), Children of Men (2006), 2012 (2009), Salt (2010), The Martian (2015), Doctor Strange (2016), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), and Venom: The Last Dance (2024). He voiced Scar in The Lion King (2019) and directed and wrote The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019) and Rob Peace (2024), starring in both.
49years old
Turns 50 on July 10in 273 days
- Born Forest Gate
- Star sign: CancerThe sign runs June 21 to July 22
- Also credited as Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor
Movie Career
- Films
- 46
- Career span
- 29 years1997 to 2026
Genres
First and latest
Photos
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Getting ready for a role
To get ready for the role, Ejiofor took up the violin, gathered slave stories, kept a slave's edge-up hairstyle, and did some of the physical labor Northup was subjected to, such as cotton picking.
Behind the camera
Chiwetel Ejiofor made his feature directorial debut in 2019 with The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, adapted from William Kamkwamba's memoir of the same name, about a boy in Malawi who built a water pump powered by wind.
First role
Ejiofor played Nicky Burkett in Jeremy Cameron's It Was an Accident, which came out in 2000 and was his first leading film role.
Chiwetel Ejiofor movies on Netflix
Best known for
The films on Netflix they are best known for, with the part played in each.
Most often with
Ridley Scott directed two of these films, Richard Curtis two and Spike Lee two. Benedict Wong appears in four of them, more than any other actor. Pick a number on the chart or a name in the list to see the films they share.
Films together
Benedict Wong's page
Woody Harrelson's page
Colin Firth's page
Charlize Theron's page
Benedict Cumberbatch's page
Hugh Grant's page
All films by Ridley Scott
All films by Richard Curtis
All films by Spike Lee
Box office
What Chiwetel Ejiofor's films earned in cinemas worldwide.
Combined worldwide box office
$7.9 billion
31 of the 46 films have a worldwide figure.
Of the 46 films: 31 worldwide figure; 4 us gross only; 5 never in cinemas; 1 streaming, short cinema run; 5 figure not found.
- 31Worldwide figure
- 4US gross only
- 5Never in cinemas
- 1Streaming, short cinema run
- 5Figure not found
Top grosser
Highest grossing
The eight biggest films earned 77% of the total. The bars are drawn to scale.
- 1$1.7B21.1% of the total
- 2$956M12.1% of the total
- 3$791M10.0% of the total
- 4$676M8.6% of the total
- 5$631M8.0% of the total
- 6$492M6.2% of the total
- 7$479M6.1% of the total
- 8$401M5.1% of the total
$1.8 billionfrom the other 23 films with a worldwide figure, 23% of the total
Awards
Five awards and honors, one of them major.
| Year | Award | Film | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| BAFTA | |||
| Best Actor in a Leading Role | Won | ||
| Other honors | |||
| 2013 | Indiana Film Journalists Association Award for Best Actor | Won | |
| Commander of the Order of the British Empire | Won | ||
| Laurence Olivier Awards | Won | ||
| Officer of the Order of the British Empire | Won | ||
Online
Official profiles and reference pages.