Chiwetel Ejiofor Quotes

Acting has always been a way for me to express myself, and show all my vulnerabilities and flaws through my characters.

At drama school, I always picked the really evil roles. It's a great way to deal with your everyday emotions.

We don't think of them as acting, but we take on certain characteristics based on where we function, and those relationships draw out aspects of who we are as people. And that's what acting is. Different parts draw out different parts of your nature.

It would be easy to say that I want to play a role that was very much like myself, but more or less with acting, you get to be all these different things, and you aren't trying to be yourself, so it's escapism in a way.

It's great fun if you get a good piece of writing and you can pretend to be someone else, tell a story that needs to be told, make some kind of connection. I've always fancied myself as a leading man, but I really doubt whether anyone else sees me that way.

I think the reason I'm an actor is the joy I find from escaping and going to be somebody else. That's what I have fun doing.

In playing, I suppose my greatest gift was to express the way I felt or the willingness to express myself.

Performing is my therapy, to become different people onstage.

When your playing drama, and you're in the moment, and you can nail the emotion that is called for, it just feels like a smooth thing. It's so great. There is nothing like getting a laugh, though.

I got to express myself in a whole new way as a different person on camera, in a different way as an actress, and I loved it.

Acting gives you freedom to express your thoughts.

Acting, I get to explore other people and other characters; with music, I get to express and explore myself.

The happiest that I remember myself was putting on plays and pretending to be other people.

My job is usually to express emotion as freely as possible.

I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, inhabiting different people and playing different roles.

I never wanted to become an actress because I'd read great literature or seen great Shakespeare. It was more just wanting to understand what the people were really like, why they said all the strange things they did.

Acting's not therapy, but it can be therapeutic.

The point of acting is to pretend you're someone else and sell a story.

I don't think the roles that I'm necessarily known for in this country are my best work, or even anywhere near it. I didn't think I was great in 'Arcadia.' I think it's a great part and a great play and had a lot of attention.

Acting is like free therapy! Trying to make people laugh or cry can be inspiring.

And it was the idea that you can do a play - like a Shakespeare play, or any well-written play, Arthur Miller, whatever - and say things you could never imagine saying, never imagine thinking in your own life.

I love acting because it's empowering. It empowers me.

I'm shy, and I can hide behind my acting and discover the truth about myself because it's cathartic in that way. But I tend not to read reviews.

You have license in front of the camera to do things, feel certain emotions that you don't get to in real life. It can be addicting.

I always used to pretend to be different characters - cowboys, that sort of thing. I used to think that the Indians lived over the mountains that I could see out of my bedroom. As I grew up, I started to understand that acting was actually a craft, and there was no question about it, that was exactly what I was going to do.