Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor, born July 10, 1977, is an award-winning Nigerian-British actor. He has won several awards, including a BAFTA Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, an NAACP Image Award, and nominations for an Academy Award. Ejiofor was born in Forest Gate, London, England.
Wiki Profile
| Full Name: | Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor |
| Date of Birth: | July 10, 1977 |
| Place of Birth: | Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor |
| State of Origin: | Enugu |
| Nationality: | Nigerian-British |
| Occupation: | Actor |
| Net Worth: | $16 million |
| Girlfriend: | Frances Aaternir |
Early Life and Education
Chiwetel Ejiofor was born on July 10, 1977, to middle-class Nigerian parents of Igbo ancestry in Forest Gate, east London.
His mother, Obiajulu, was a pharmacist, and his father, Arinze, was a physician all from Nigeria.
His younger sister, Zain Asher works as a CNN reporter while Dr. Kandi Ejiofor, his other sister, is a GP doctor.
When Ejiofor was 11 years old and on a family trip to Nigeria for a wedding, their automobile was engaged in a head-on collision with a lorry as they were traveling to Lagos after the festivities.
Ejiofor suffered severe injuries, including scarring on his forehead, and his father was slain.
At his junior school, Dulwich Prep London (then known as “Dulwich College Preparatory School”), when he played the gravedigger in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ejiofor first appeared in school plays.
He joined the National Youth Theatre and continued acting at Dulwich College, his senior school. After being chosen for Steven Spielberg’s movie Amistad, he quit the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art after his first year.
In September 1995, he appeared in Othello at the Bloomsbury Theatre.
The following year, in 1996, he performed the same role opposite Rachael Stirling in Desdemona at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow.
Career
In the television film Deadly Voyage, Ejiofor makes his feature debut in 1996. He then developed into a theater actor in London.
He supported Djimon Hounsou’s Cinque as interpreter Ensign James Covey in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad.
He had an appearance in the 1999 British movie Greenwich Mean Time (G:MT). He played the lead role in Blue/Orange in 2000 at the Cottesloe stage of the Royal National Theatre and afterwards at the Duchess Theatre.
In the same year, he was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award for his portrayal of Romeo in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
The Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer was given to Ejiofor at the 2000 Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards.
Ejiofor was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2001 and won the London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Outstanding Newcomer in 2000 for his work in Blue/Orange.
Ejiofor played Nicky Burkett in Jeremy Cameron’s It Was an Accident, which was his first major motion picture role (2000).
He received a British Independent Film Award for best actor in 2002 for his performance in Dirty Pretty Things.
Chiwetel Ejiofor Net Worth
Chiwetel Ejiofor is a talented and popular Nigerian-British actor with an estimated net worth of $16 million.
Personal Life
The actor Chiwetel Ejiofor is not married. Since 2013, he had been dating Sari Mercer. After a few years, the couple got separated.
Ejiofor and model Frances Aaternir are now dating. Ejiofor is a supporter of the “LGBT” community’s interests.
For his charitable work in Nigeria, Ejiofor was given a Global Promise Award in 2015 by The GEANCO Foundation, a non-profit welfare organization in West Africa.
Ejiofor appeared in a UNHCR film to help spread awareness of the world refugee situation on September 12, 2016, together with Cate Blanchett, Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Capaldi, Douglas Booth, Neil Gaiman, Keira Knightley, Juliet Stevenson, Kit Harington, and Stanley Tucci.
As part of UNHCR’s #WithRefugees campaign, which also includes a petition to governments to expand asylum to provide more shelter, integrating job opportunities, and education, the actors in the video, titled “What They Took With Them,” recite a poem written by Jenifer Toksvig and inspired by firsthand accounts of real refugees.
Social Media
- Instagram: @chiwetelejiofor__
