Chiwetel Ejiofor

Chiwetel Ejiofor is a BAFTA Award winning actor with a breadth of critically acclaimed work across stage and screen. He previously worked with director Ridley Scott in 2008's American Gangster.

In 1996, Ejifor caught the attention of Stephen Spielberg, who cast him in the critically acclaimed Amistad, starring alongside Morgan Freeman and Anthony Hopkins. He returned to the big screen in Stephen Frears' 2001 thriller Dirty Pretty Things, for which his performance as Okwe won him the Best Actor Award at the British Independent Film Awards, the Evening Standard Film Awards, and the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards.

In 2003, Ejiofor co-starred in three films: Richard Curtis' Love Actually, Slow Burn and Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda. His subsequent credits include Talk to Me, David Mamet's Redbelt, Kinky Boots (in which he played the loveable drag queen Lola), the urban drama Four Brothers alongside Mark Wahlberg, Spike Lee's Inside Man alongside Clive Owen, Jodie Foster and Denzel Washington, and the Oscar nominated Children of Men, again alongside Clive Owen.

2013 saw Ejiofor star in Stephen Poliakoff's BBC series Dancing on the Edge, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Mini Series and an Emmy Award nomination. Prior to that he was in the award winning The Shadow Line, a thrilling drama for the BBC, in which he played lead character 'Jonah Gabriel' alongside a superb cast including Christopher Eccleston, Lesley Sharp and Rafe Spall.

The year 2014 was a memorable one for Ejiofor and saw him star in Steve McQueen's Oscar winning Twelve Years A Slave. He played the role of Soloman Northup, which gained Ejiofor both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations and won him a Best Actor BAFTA. Later in the year Ejiofor starred in Half of a Yellow Sun, based on the highly acclaimed novel of the same title, which also starred Thandie Newton and Joseph Mawle.

In 2015, he starred in the film Z for Zachariah, alongside Chris Pine and Margot Robbie. The film about a nuclear war in a small American town is directed by Craig Zobel, and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Next he was seen in Triple Nine, wherehe starred alongside the cast including Kate Winslet, Casey Affleck, Gal Gadot, Aaron Paul and Norman Reedus.

Ejioifor's other films include Salt, alongside Angelina Jolie and Liev Schreiber, and Roland Emmerich's 2012 opposite John Cusack, Danny Glover and Thandie Newton. The same year his performance in Endgame, Channel 4's moving drama set in South Africa, earned Ejiofor a Golden Globe nomination for the Best performance by an actor in a mini-series or a motion picture made for television.

Ejifor balances his film and television commitments with his theatre work. In 2013 he was seen in the Young Vic's adaptation of A Season in the Congo, directed by Joe Wright. His performance as Patrice Lumumba received rave reviews.

His 2008 performance in the title role of Michael Grandage's Othello at the Donmar Warehouse alongside Kelly Reilly and Ewan McGregor was unanimously commended, and won him the 2008 Olivier Award for Best Actor, the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor, as well as nominations for the South Bank Show Awards 2009 and the What's On Stage Theatregoers' Choice Awards. His other stage credits include A Season in the Congo at the The Young Vic, Roger Michell's Blue/Orange in 2000, which earned an Olivier Award for Best Play, and the same year Tim Supple's Romeo and Juliet, with Ejiofor in the title role.

In addition to his acting career, Ejiofor directed the short film Slapper, which screened at the 2008 Edinburgh Film Festival.

Twentieth Century Fox