Chiwetel Ejiofor

British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor poses with a BAFTA Award during a photocall to announce the nominations for the 2007 edition of the awards in central London January 12, 2007. Stephen Frears' "The Queen", portraying a confused monarch at the time of Princess Diana's death in 1997. Ejiofor's "A Season In The Congo" by Aime Cesaire and directed by Joe Wright starts July 6 until August 17, 2013 in London. The play is about the last months of Patrice Lumumba's life and the repercussions of his murder which brought to power the brutal and corrupt Mobutu Sese Seko in the Congo. Ejiofor, in the past year has been filming two long awaited projects, the adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Half of a Yellow Sun" and Steve McQueen's "Twelve Years A Slave" starring Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and Paul Giamatti. 

Ejiofor was born in London's Forest Gate, to Nigerian parents of the Igbo tribe. His father, Arinze, was a doctor, and his mother, Obiajulu, was a pharmacist. In 1988, when Ejiofor was 11, tragedy occurred during a family trip to Nigeria for a wedding. After the celebrations, Ejiofor and his father were driving to Lagos when their car was involved in a head-on crash with a lorry. His father was killed, but Ejiofor survived despite being badly injured, receiving the scars on his forehead. Ejiofor began acting in school plays at the age of thirteen at Dulwich College and joined the National Youth Theater. He played the title role in Othelo at the Bloomsberry Theater in September 1995, and again at the Theater Royal, Glasgow in 1996 when he starred opposite rachael Sterling, who played Desdemona.

Image: Alessia Pierdeminecco