Chiwetel Ejiofor is a British film and stage actor. He has won several awards, including a San Diego Film Critics Society Award, an Evening Standard British Film Award, and a Black Reel Award. The Black Reel Awards recognize and celebrate the achievements of African-Americans in film. He has also been nominated for over a half dozen additional awards.

Ejiofor was born in London to Nigerian parents of Igbo heritage. At the age of thirteen, he began to act in school plays and eventually joined the National Youth Theatre. In September, 1995, he played the title role in Othello at the Bloomsbury Theatre in Camden, London.

Ejiofor made his film debut in 1997 in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad. He then went on to become a prominent stage actor in London and was awarded the Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer at the 2000 Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards.

His first leading role came in the 2002 film Dirty Pretty Things, for which he won several awards. He starred as the main antagonist, known only as The Operative, in the film Serenity, the motion picture follow-up to Joss Whedon’s science fiction television series Firefly. Ejiofor starred in the acclaimed motion picture Children of Men, which starred Clive Owen (Inside Man, Sin City) and Julianne Moore (The Lost World: Jurassic Park). He starred again with Clive Owen in the heist film Inside Man, which also starred veteran actor Denzel Washington. He can also be seen in the new film Talk To Me, which you can read about in my write-up of the movie.

Ejiofor starred in the Golden Globe-nominated mini-series Tsunami: The Aftermath, which chronicled the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and resulting tsunami in Thailand. His performance earned him a 2007 Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.

Here’s a little interesting tidbit for comic book nerds such as myself: Ejiofor is one of the frontrunners to play T’Challa in the proposed film version of the Marvel Comics superhero the Black Panther.

Here’s the trailer for Serenity, in which Ejiofor plays The Operative: