Chiwetel Ejiofor Quotes

Once I get up on stage, I will have to forget who I am playing and focus on the game itself.

To me, acting is a matter of absolute concentration. You can laugh and giggle with your friends up to the minute the director says, "Action!" Then you snap your mind into shape and into the character that you're playing and relate to the people that you're acting with and forget everybody else that you've been joking with.

Onstage, I don't want to be thinking about my outfit, I want to think about what I'm doing, so I'll try to dress as comfortably as possible.

You try to become the character that you're working with. So for me, I try to block out the cameras and try to trick my mind that this is actually happening.

At some level, you've got to have the ability to - especially in film and in front of the camera, you got to have the ability to drop into character and close off the entire crew and the camera and everything else.

Acting keeps me alert to people, and life. I don't know, there's something about going to work early in the morning, and having to stay alert and concentrated. Maybe that keeps your mind alive.

Whenever I'm onstage, I try my best not to think that I'm performing. It's simply another part of my day.

When you step into the batter's box, have nothing on your mind except baseball.

I was so nervous every night that I had to really focus and keep myself in that moment so that I would not forget the words. I was really present for every song.

When you're no longer seeing yourself, in some ways. You're as close to being as you can be.I suppose that's consistent with the moment that the mind actually turns off, and is no longer questioning what you're doing. When the questions stop, that's when the real acting takes over. And trying to get to the point where the questions stop, "Would I do this? How do I feel about that as a character?" When those stop, and it's just doing X, Y, and zed, because that's what you'd do as this character, because you're inside this character somehow - that's when it really kicks off.

The trick to being a good actor is getting so involved in your character that the camera disappears, the 50 bored guys eating doughnuts disappear, friends disappear. To get to that point when you don't have to think about it, you're just acting and reacting in those circumstances.

I never had an aversion because I was active in the drama club. If I had that aversion I certainly wouldn't put myself in the position of being on stage. Of course, in the drama club you're hiding behind a character.

The old cliché in theater is, if you’re nervous, pick up a prop, which will immediately take you outside of your mind.

Everything that you do is a challenge. And acting is just building up your concentration and being able to listen and to do the ridiculous.

A lot of actors are just like la la la - they're never really connected and then they're in the scene and then boom. They're looking you in the eyes and they're just really focused.

I always try to keep in mind the I do all that training for a reason, which is to compete to the best of my ability.

People watch me when I get into these characters that I have in my head, so perhaps I should try acting. So I did.

To get to go from stage to set and back, it keeps you feeling very present, and I think that's always such a wonderful thing in your work because you don't really have time to be as neurotic as I might become.

I do love being onstage. And I've always loved playing a character and being watched doing that.

It's like there's a moment that happens in baseball, and when it happens, I do everything to concentrate. When you do that, it can be good.

One of the first roles I had on stage was with a brilliant director in a brilliant play with a brilliant cast, but I just couldn't find my way into the heart of the character. I found myself straining a lot. When it started. I felt lost. That was the Eugène Ionesco play Rhinoceros. I don't think I was prepared for that. I don't think I had the full tool kit to do it justice. It's a very difficult play, it's an extraordinarily difficult part, and I never felt I really got it right. Far from it. To a degree, Hamlet was the same.

When I'm acting, I'm in the director's hands. I'm very happy to be. I like to be focused on what I'm doing.

Once the cameras rolling or the audience is in the seats, I'm on. I can't help it. I go into a trance.

Acting is like an addiction - once you start, you can't stop.

It's always hard but the reality is, especially in my case, that every time I go to work I have to do it so it's become part of the job. It's an extra challenge but it's also quite often another extra tool that you have to really think consciously about getting into the character. So while it does require more work, it's maybe even an advantage to a degree because it forces you to switch, to consciously have to jump into and out of the character.