Chiwetel Ejiofor

London native Chiwetel Ejiofor has played everything from an exiled doctor working as a hotel concierge and cab driver in ’Dirty Pretty Things’ to an intergalactic assassin in ’Serenity’ and a drag queen trying to save a footwear factory in ’Kinky Boots’.

He’s also worked with such esteemed directors as Spike Lee, Ridley Scott, Woody Allen, David Mamet and Steven Spielberg to name a few. Ejiofor’s latest project, ’2012’ gives him a front row seat for the end of the world and I had a chance to speak to him a few weeks ago about his role in Roland Emmerich’s epic apocalyptic adventure.

Are you a fan of Roland’s film?

Ejiofor: I am, yeah. I’ve always been a big fan of Roland Emmerich’s movies. I think what I love about them is the way that they combine these huge cinematic spectacles with these great stories, great narratives, great characters. He’s always got great characters in him movies. That was one of the things I was really excited by.

‘2012’. What makes it different from his previous disaster films?

Ejiofor: I think that ‘2012’ first of all the scale of it is like huge. I mean, it’s epic, I think it’s bigger than anything he’s ever done, or anybody’s ever done I think. It’s just massive. I think there is a different political, thematic, story here that is happening. Not only are the characters really interesting, and the emotions of the characters and what they go through, but I think that the overall concept of the world uniting in this way, and individuals and government have responsibilities, how they interact and deal with each other, as well as the role of science in the life of people. It’s how science can be pushed and pulled for either political or financial benefits. That is a very, very interesting and I think unique part of the zeitgeist of where our consciousness is right now. As well as in this movie, the other aspect of it, is the sense of the world. The fragility of the planet, so I think the combination of all of those factors, some of them I think he’s looked at before. But I think the combination is pretty unique.

How much research did you do for your character?

Ejiofor: I wanted to know what I was talking about in the stuff that was technical. So I had to hit the books a little bit. My character was a geologist in the movie, so I had to look at what was going on with that, but it wasn’t heavy stuff. It wasn’t a very, in a sense it wasn’t a very research based, acting exercise. You learn as much as you can about it so that you know kind of what the character knows. Then the rest of the movie, that’s the start of the movie, and then the rest of the movie they are trying to deal with this situation as it comes up. They are trying to survive, and work out how other people survive, and how to move forward.

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What I like about your character specifically is that it’s the eyes and ears inside the White House. Do you believe that is something, if there was a 2012 epic happening, do you think that’s how they would go about it? By taking scientists, artifacts, and preserving them?

Ejiofor: Yeah, I think it’s very plausible that the government would, given the set of circumstances, implement ways of saving certain aspects of humanity and making sure they were preserved. Whether they knew, or didn’t know, whether everything else would be destroy or not, they would probably implement some kind of plan to preserve what they, to preserve some things. I think it’s always interesting what countries, what governments would want to preserve. What are the government archives. I think it’s fascinating. It’s sort of touched on in the movie, and it’s a fascinating concept, that every country in the world probably has some archival footage that is unique to their country, of things that happened in their country. Obviously, there is documentation, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and you want to preserve all of these things. There will also be lots of things. Lots of just video footage, lots of stuff and recordings, from the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s. Certainly in England you would have all of these different things in the National Archives that people would want to preserve to say ‘This is what we were and what we represented.’ It would be an incredible amount of stuff if you were really trying to save it all. You wouldn’t have any room for people.

When you were doing your research was a lot of it from, how much research did you do on the Mayan stuff, the calendar?

Ejiofor: A little bit. I just wanted to find out what I could about the Mayans and find out what the different interpretations of what the end of days would be and are. The two main things that keep on coming back is either this apocalyptic sense of the end of the world and mass destruction, or its this change in consciousness that everybody had been thinking about. It looks likely that it’s going to be one of the two. You hope that it’s the latter, that this kind of change in consciousness a rediscovering of the relationship that we have to the planet seems to be the most likely form of a change in direction for people. The real implementation of a different way of harmonizing with the world.

Going back to what you just had right now, do you think that what will probably happen will depend on us?

Ejiofor: Well, that’s the 64 million dollar question. That’s the thing. I think that we will destroy the planet if we continue to do things the way that we are, whether it’s a quick as 2012, who knows? But at some point the planet will buckle under the pressure that we put on it unless we fundamentally change the way we look at harmonizing with the planet. When you think that for previous generations, and for early man, the idea of harmonizing with the planet was just a matter of logic. They didn’t think about it for too long. You know that if you cut down a few trees here then you try and plant them up because you’ve got to do it. Otherwise you’re going to destroy the forest. It was completely logical and it seems that we lost that somehow. That inherent, completely simple, logic and I think we’ve got to find it and get it back. Otherwise we are really going to do ourselves some permanent damage. Now, of course an asteroid could hit us, but I think we’ve got to play it like we won’t. You know?

I spoke to Woody Harrelson a few weeks ago and he said that at some point we all need to evolve. Do you believe in that? That at some point the world has to evolve.

Ejiofor: Yeah, I think that the human mind hasn’t really evolved, in terms of evolution, in 10,000 years it’s been the same, and yet we’re overrun at this point. We’re not the same animal that we were even though we have the same brain capacity, the same this, and that. But we are overrun at this point with the technological aspects of everything. We have to somehow find a way of reclaiming ourselves, reclaiming the planet, and reclaiming humanity. I think that is a question of evolution, of a decision to evolve, rather than a biological evolution. A decision to mature and become a slightly more introspective and thoughtful group.

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How was it working again with Thandie Newton? You haven’t worked with her in 10 years.

Ejiofor: It was great, Thandie is wonderful. She’s an incredibly lovely and charming person. She’s a terrific actress, very sweet natured, and a good person to know. I had a great time. It was always fun when she was on set. It was great in this movie that there were so many actors that I really loved working with, that I had always wanted to work with, and Thandie I had worked with. I wanted to work with her again, and Oliver Platt I was a huge fan of his, and John Cusack. I didn’t get to do any scenes with Woody Harrelson but I was thrilled that he was part of the movie and just around somewhere. Amanda Peet, and I had actually done another movie, in fact this is the second movie that I’ve done with Amanda that I haven’t had a scene with her in it. We’ve never shared the screen but we did a Woody Allen film called ‘Melinda & Melinda’ and then this one. That’s two for naught.

Speaking of Oliver Platt, obviously there are some people like that in government. Do you think that is the truth? Do you think there is specifically one person in the White House that acts like that and believes what he thinks is right, forget about the humans, and we got to save ourselves and forget everybody else?

Ejiofor: Who are you talking about?

Oliver Platt.

Ejiofor: I know, but who are you talking about in the White House?

No, no in general?

Ejiofor: Oh yeah, I mean I think there are people who look at things from one perspective. They confuse heartlessness with pragmatism. If somebody solves some massive event, like if somebody turns up one day in the government and says ‘Hey listen…’ like the guy who died recently who revolutionized harvesting, he saved millions, and millions, of lives world wide, whose name I can’t remember, which is indicative of the craziness of how we value things in an upside down way. Say somebody finds this seed and said ‘This is the seed that cures poverty.’ There is going to be somebody in government who is going to say something like ‘Well, now we’ve got an overpopulation crisis.’ They will confuse what they perceive as pragmatic with this extraordinary heartlessness. I think that you are always going to find that, and find levels of that, in government. I think that in some ways Oliver’s character represents that kind of way of looking at the world that is quite destructive.

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There is also like the price of a ticket, that people should pay their way?

Ejiofor: Well, what they would argue is that it’s the only way to actually fund the actual building of the thing. Obviously that is one of the moral and philosophical complications, and ethical complications, in the movie. How do you resolve that? How do you resolve the idea that you want these things to be built but if you don’t give tickets to the richest people on the planet, how do you finance them being built in the first place? That’s tough. There’s not an easy answer.

Roland’s film ‘Independence Day’ pretty much launched Will Smith’s career. Do you see this giving you a little bit of a boost now?

Ejiofor: Well, I mean…

You’ve done awesome work before.

Ejiofor: Thank you.

I like the Denzel Washington films you were in.

Ejiofor: ‘American Gangster’. You know, I don’t know. You just got to see what happens. It’s a funny…I don’t know. I don’t think it’s an industry that you can predict very much. All I know is that I want to carry on. I’ve been very lucky with the work that I’ve done. I’ve gotten to work with some great people, some great directors, and some really interesting characters, fantastically different locations and places, and I’m excited to carry on doing that in whichever form that takes. I don’t know what tomorrow brings.

Would you like to be more involved in theatre still?

Ejiofor: Yeah, I love doing theatre, I love doing plays, and I’m going to continue doing plays throughout my working career. I’m just going to get between movies, theatre, and try to figure it out somehow.

You are a busy man. Who do you play in ‘Salt’?

Ejiofor: I play a man who is called Bill Peabody. He’s a counter intelligence CIA. He’s trying to work out who the good people are, who the bad people are, and it’s a very fascinating project. It’s a kind of paranoid thriller. It’s directed by Phillip Noyce, with Angelina Jolie, and Live Schreiber. We had a great time working on it, it’s a very interesting project to be involved in.

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Is Angelina’s character more like a Jason Bourne type?

Ejiofor: I don’t know, I don’t think I can answer that question. I think you’re going to have to see it for yourself.

Obviously, there was already a report about ‘Inside Man 2’?

Ejiofor: Sure.

What’s next up for you on that project?

Ejiofor: I actually have no idea, I don’t know.

Yeah, they said Spike, Denzel, Clive are all going to get back together.

Ejiofor: Oh, great. I had a great time working on it and I think it’s a really exciting project to get involved in, so we’ll see what happens.

2012 Opens November 13th 2009.