Born in the Forest Gate section of London to Nigerian parents, Chiwetel Ejiofor started acting in school plays at the age of 13. He earned a scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, then made his feature film debut in 1997 in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad. Ejiofor would follow this performance with turns in Stephen Frears’ critically acclaimed Dirty Pretty Things, Richard Curtis’ Love Actually, Spike Lee’s She Hate Me, Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda, John Singleton’s Four Brothers and Joss Whedon’s Serenity. This year, Ejiofor received a nomination for the 2006 BAFTA Orange Rising Star award, which recognizes exceptional talent and outstanding performances in young actors.

Ejiofor will next been seen as the lead in Kinky Boots, which played on the opening night of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and will be released by Miramax this spring. Shot in London, the film follows the story of a Soho transvestite (Ejiofor) who helps resuscitate an ailing North Hampton shoe factory.

He recently completed shooting Universal’s Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, in which he stars opposite Clive Owen and Julianne Moore. Based on the novel of the same title by P.D. James, Children of Men is set in the year 2027; Ejiofor plays Luke, the leader of a radical political faction, who is in a race against Faron (Clive Owen) to control the future of the human race.

Ejiofor has also completed Tonight at Noon, in which he stars with Connie Nielsen and Lauren Ambrose, with appearances by Ethan Hawke, Nick Nolte and Radha Mitchell. The independent film is written and directed by Michael Almereyda (Hamlet). Ejiofor plays two characters in the film, which centers on several New Yorkers who experience random encounters that define their lives.

Ejiofor was voted Outstanding Newcomer at the London Evening Standard Awards in 2000 for his performance in Blue/Orange, a play about a mental patient who claims to be the son of an exiled African dictator; he was also awarded the Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer at the 2000 London Critics Circle Theatre Awards (Drama) for the performance. In 2001, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Blue/Orange at the Royal National Theatre. In 2003, he was nominated for Best Actor by the Washington Area Film Critics Association and won a British Independent Film Award for Best Actor for his work in Dirty Pretty Things.

Filmography

• Redbelt (2008)
• Toussaint (2007)
• Tonight at Noon (2007)
• American Gangster (2007)
• Talk to Me (2007)
• Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006)
• Children of Men (2006)
• Inside Man (2006)
• Kinky Boots (2005)
• Slow Burn (2005)
• Serenity (2005)
• Four Brothers (2005)
• Melinda and Melinda (2004)
• Red Dust (2004)
• She Hate Me (2004)
• "The Canterbury Tales" (1 episode, 2003)
• Love Actually (2003)
• 3 Blind Mice (2003)
• Twelfth Night, or What You Will (2003)
• "Trust" (3 episodes, 2003)
• Dirty Pretty Things (2002)
• "Murder in Mind" (1 episode, 2001)
• My Friend Soweto (2001)
• Mind Games (2001)
• It Was an Accident (2000)
• G:MT Greenwich Mean Time (1999)
• Amistad (1997)
• Deadly Voyage (1996)

Awards

• Evening Standard Award Outstanding Newcomer "Blue/Orange" 2000
• London Critics' Circle Theatre Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer "Blue/Orange" 2000 - 2001