Vanity Fair has a new brief profile and long video interview with actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, whose name I’m finally learning to pronounce. (It sounds just like it’s written.) As Kaiser has mentioned, I have a deep crush on this man, but it’s complicated for me. After seeing 12 Years a Slave, I get butterflies mixed with sadness when I see him. I’ve never been as affected by a movie, or by a performance, as I was by Ejiofor in 12 Years. That’s down to Steve McQueen’s excellent direction coupled with how masterfully Ejiofor played the part. You see yourself and your own struggles in his expressive eyes, and it’s heartbreaking. So now I have to watch a bunch of Ejiofor’s other movies so I don’t always associate him with the tragic yet triumphant Solomon Northup.

In interviews, Ejiofor comes across as very professional and committed to his craft. He’s matter-of-fact about it and isn’t getting puffed up about all the accolades he’s getting. Somehow he seems above speculation about his personal life. It’s not that he thinks he’s too good to gossip about at all. It’s just that during an interview with the man who gave one of the most powerful performances of all time, in one of the best movies of all time, it seems ridiculous to ask if he’s seeing anyone. (I was able to find out that he used to date Naomie Harris and is currently with a woman named Sari Mercer. He likes redheads, yay!)

It’s reassuring to me that he’s getting fashion spreads with Kate Moss, although I want to see him touted more as a heartthrob. Ejiofor has been working steadily for years, but this is his real breakout role and I do think he should be getting more photo spreads and people gushing over him. So I’m doing my part!

Vanity Fair has a video interview with Ejiofor that is well worth watching. There are spoilers, so be aware if you haven’t seen 12 Years yet. One of the most moving sections is at about 6:00 in, when Ejiofor talks about how his own personal history helped him relate to his character. His parents emigrated from Nigeria to the UK before he was born. People from his parents’ same Ibo ethnic group were kidnapped into slavery, which he learned while visiting a slave museum in Nigeria. Here’s what he said of the experience, and of the role:

On connecting to his character
It was a very emotional moment to know that I was going to go on the same destination as people who were leaving there. A lot of those people, a lot of Ibos – and I’m Ibo, left that area to go to Louisiana (where 12 Years was set and filmed) at that point. It was coincidence that I was there, but it was a very interesting way to start the process, for going somewhere and having plantain and okra and then going to New Orleans and having plantain and okra and thinking ‘all these things are very connected.’

On if he’s all-in method or can leave his character
With something like this… it just had to be a practical thing… Like ok, so ‘I need a violin teacher.’ I wanted to get down to Louisiana, I wanted to get down to the plantations… get a real feel for the place. I wanted to take a look at the cotton picking, trying to figure out the timber stuff, the cutting down of the trees… obviously the sugar cane. The industry of it all was very important to me, just to figure that out.

On what he found out about his character’s work
It opens up certain things to you that you can’t even consider until you’re there. I realized that when you’re chopping down trees, there’s a catharsis in that kind of physical labor. You’re reminded of your own physicality and humanness within the context of that and again with sugarcane… picking cotton is the complete opposite. There’s no catharsis in it, there’s nothing. Just burning sunshine, 108 degrees on the first day on the Epps plantation, and it lends itself to that kind of surreal insanity that the Epps plantation has. Your only sounds are the crack of the whip in the distance, maybe somebody passing out. It’s a different reality. That’s why in the story, each plantation has its own psychology and some of the psychology comes from the work that’s being done. I could never have put that together until going out there.

[From video interview on Vanity Fair]

I love how pragmatic and thoughtful he is, and how he approached the role in a systematic way by experiencing his character’s work. Ejiofor kept praising Steve McQueen for helping both immerse the actors, and the audience, in the experience of slavery. The more I learn about Ejiofor, the more I admire him and find him fascinating. I still want to know what he does in his free time, but I can fill in the details. For now there’s so much richness in this film and the story that I understand why everyone is focusing on it. There will be time to learn more about Ejiofor in the lead up to the Oscars.

Photo credit: WENN.com