"I was already devouring literature and I was the ripe old age of 15 when I decided to be an actor. I just thought plays were the most fantastic way of expressing life. I thought I'd discovered Shakespeare - 'hey, there's a new guy in town, don't know if anyone's read him.' I was just excited about the whole thing, from day one"
About this Quote
There is something disarming about an actor admitting he arrived at Shakespeare like a kid stumbling onto a new band. Chiwetel Ejiofor leans into that comic naivete on purpose: the faux-discovery ("new guy in town") punctures the reverence that often calcifies around the canon. It is a small act of cultural defiance, insisting that the classics stay alive only when they can be met with fresh appetite rather than dutiful worship.
The first move is identity-building. "Devouring literature" and the "ripe old age of 15" frame him as both precocious and self-aware, a reader who also knows how ridiculous adolescence can sound in hindsight. That tension matters: Ejiofor positions acting not as an escape from seriousness but as an extension of it. He is not claiming he was born to perform; he is claiming he was converted by form.
His praise of plays as "the most fantastic way of expressing life" is less a Hallmark line than a thesis about immediacy. Theatre is literature with bodies attached, language forced to survive breath, timing, and silence. In that context, "from day one" reads like a declaration of allegiance to craft: the excitement isn't for celebrity, it's for the machinery of storytelling itself.
Coming from a contemporary Black British actor who has navigated Shakespeare on major stages, the anecdote also quietly reclaims access. Shakespeare is not a gated inheritance; he is public property, available to anyone bold enough to be thrilled by him. The joke lands because the point is serious.
The first move is identity-building. "Devouring literature" and the "ripe old age of 15" frame him as both precocious and self-aware, a reader who also knows how ridiculous adolescence can sound in hindsight. That tension matters: Ejiofor positions acting not as an escape from seriousness but as an extension of it. He is not claiming he was born to perform; he is claiming he was converted by form.
His praise of plays as "the most fantastic way of expressing life" is less a Hallmark line than a thesis about immediacy. Theatre is literature with bodies attached, language forced to survive breath, timing, and silence. In that context, "from day one" reads like a declaration of allegiance to craft: the excitement isn't for celebrity, it's for the machinery of storytelling itself.
Coming from a contemporary Black British actor who has navigated Shakespeare on major stages, the anecdote also quietly reclaims access. Shakespeare is not a gated inheritance; he is public property, available to anyone bold enough to be thrilled by him. The joke lands because the point is serious.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
|---|
More Quotes by Chiwetel
Add to List
