Chiwetel Ejiofor: ‘Kinky Boots’ was ahead of its time

Chiwetel Ejiofor is a British Nigerian actor who is a consummate professional and an incredible actor. In other words he doesn’t give us much to gossip about. I really enjoyed his directorial debut, The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, out now on Netflix. it’s based on a true story, Chiwetel put so much of himself into it and it shows. He’s in a supporting role as the father of the lead character. It’s the true story of William Kamkwamba, a Malawian inventor who was just 13 when he invented a windmill that brought electricity to his family’s small village and changed everyone’s fortunes.

My favorite performances of Chiwetel’s are in 12 Years a Slave and Kinky Boots. He was also great in Children of Men, I just watched that a few weeks ago but I didn’t love him in it because he plays someone you root against! In an interview with Fast Company, Chiwetel talked about his performances and work in his most iconic movies.

On Love Actually
By about mid December until just after Valentine’s Day is now kind of Love, Actually season. I always feel like that wedding [scene] was such an incredible, emotional, happy and fun experience. I’m thrilled and excited that people love the movie so much.
On Kinky Boots
Lola [was] one of the most interesting and most dynamic people that I’ve ever played. [Kinky Boots] is kind of ahead of its time. It had an impact at that time and that moment. Also there was a kind of deep and emotional resonance to that character. It was talking about serious issues in a really fun way.
On Children of Men
What Alfonso Cuaron (director) and Emmanuel Lubezki (cinematographer) were trying to achieve cinematically on Children of Men had never been attempted before and was so vast [and] ambitious. It’s why he’s such a extraordinary, talented, innovative filmmaker. He was wonderful to watch and be on the set of. What they had been able to achieve in days with that huge battle sequence was a real lesson of how you can push the limits of cinema.
On 12 Years a Slave
What I love about working with Steve McQueen was that… he’s very sensitive to what every individual needs to understand and develop their own work within the context of the film. [Yet] everybody’s making the same film in the end. He’s somebody who really gets that.
On The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind
I read the book in 2009 and completely fell in love with this story. I was really surprised that… I never felt that [it] was finished. There’s always more that you could give to it even after 10 years.

[From video on Fast Company]

Chiwetel learned another language for The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, Chichewa, in order to switch between English and the language that Malawians use at home. That felt natural in the film, as did a lot of other moments. (In his interview with NPR he explained how he got the masked characters, the Gule Wamkulu, to appear. They’re a secret society and it was a big deal that they appeared in the movie.) It was one of only a handful of big budget films to be filmed in Malawi, they shot it right where William Kamkwamba grew up. I highly recommend it and found it both entertaining and inspirational.

In Kinky Boots, Chiwetel plays a drag queen who helps revive a shoe business by working with the owner (Joel Edgerton) to make shoes for queens. Here’s a link to the trailer, it’s such a fun movie. It’s no longer available streaming for free but it’s so worth renting. That came out in 2005, about four years before RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered. It became a Broadway musical in 2013 and has been performed around the world. He was so great in it and has played such a wide variety of roles. I have such a crush on Chiwetel but he’s not playing up his heartthrob status or talking about his personal life, he’s just pouring himself into his work and it shows.