While many of us still look at Chiwetel Ejiofor and see the anguished, broken Solomon Northup, given his quite miraculous and sincere portrayal in Steve McQueen’s Oscar winning drama 12 Years a Slave, the British actor is now back on home soil promoting his latest production, taking a starring role in Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun.
The film takes place amidst the devastating Nigerian civil war during the late 1960s, and Ejiofor plays political activist Odenigbo, who falls in love with Thandie Newton’s affluent Olanna. Though Ejiofor was born and raised in London, it’s a series of events very close to home to the actor, who is of Nigerian heritage. “It was something that I was always aware of,” he said. “It’s a very important part of my family history and one of the reasons why I was born in London, because after the war my family moved away from Nigeria. I was always interested in the war and I’d spoken to my mother about it various times. It wasn’t really until about six or seven years ago when I was in Nigeria and I ended up talking to my grandfather about it and it turned into 10 hours of tape, and interviews about his experiences in the three and half years of the war, going from being an accountant in the north of Nigeria to basically travelling with his children and family, village to village. So it was always something I connected to.”
Though British audiences may come into this tale knowing little about it, Ejiofor is a firm believer in the power of cinema, and how impactful the educational aspects can be. “Being able to get those stories out there is kind of a unique experience. This was amazing, to tell a story like this that is a rare story for people to hear outside of Nigeria and outside of Africa, and to take that around and for people to recognise the similarities. I think people tend to think of African wars as slightly abstract and very different from European conflict – but I think as people understand more about the geo-political situations that happened in the 60s and 70s, they’re able to draw the striking parallels to what’s happening now. Which is why it’s interesting bringing out a film like this.
“This film, as the book does, has an educational purpose, especially when it’s received in the west, because a lot of people don’t know about these events. Hopefully it contextualises the experience. Film is always a journey and understanding the context of a place is all part of being able to relate to cinema.”
Ejiofor had never previously made a film in his mother country, but as an established fan of the original Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie novel of which this film is based upon, he was convinced this was the perfect project for him. “I read the book in 2007, and had coincidentally been talking to Biyi about shooting the film in Nigeria as I wanted to make film there,” he said. “So when he told me he was adapting this it was perfect, and we were able to go out there and make a film. Nigeria is a very rich and interesting place to make films, first of all it has a fascinating history but it’s also a very beautiful country so capture some of that beauty on film is something I was excited about.”
Ejiofor had shot Half of a Yellow Sun right before heading off to make 12 Years a Slave, and we asked him whether he believes delving into his own culture and heritage enriched his performance as Solomon Northup. “Everything enriches everything else,” he said. “I don’t think I ever thought about it consciously. The clearest continuation was just being aware of the environment, the place. I remember having plantain and okra in Nigeria, and then going to New Orleans and having plantain and okra, and just realising the connectivity of all of those things, and the historical connection of all of these places, which isn’t really understood as clearly as it appeared right then to me. These universal experiences that had previously seemed quite remote, but aren’t.”
You can draw a parallel between his two roles in both films – as characters who had been so comfortable in life, wealthy and privileged – before being thrust into a devastating situation where their money means nothing at all. But Ejiofor claims that nearly all films, in order to work, need to have an element of taking an ordinary person, and throwing them in rather extraordinary surroundings. “That’s always quite dramatic and interesting, but I think all films are like that in a way. They have to have an element of that to work. Even though I finished Half of a Yellow Sun and went straight into 12 Years a Slave, the connection was where we were shooting in Calabar and the slave museum there, which I visited on the last day before I left for New Orleans. That was interesting to me because that was the journey – I was at the slave museum in Calabar where a lot of the ships that carried people out of there, went to New Orleans, so it was a very interesting, coincidental way of being able to segue into a completely different experience.”
However that’s not to say the characters are in any way the similar beyond that – as Ejiofor is a firm advocate for diversifying his selection of roles. “I’m fascinated by diversity, it’s why you do it. You don’t want to be playing the same thing all the time, I kind of want to tell as rich a scope of stories as I possibly can, and I’ve been incredibly lucky in the work I’ve been able to do that it’s been part of it.”
Naturally this led to a question about the strong rumours of Ejiofor taking on a role as a villain in the forthcoming James Bond picture, yet the actor kept his cards somewhat close to his chest. “As for the future, we’ll see. Who knows.”
Finally, it’s been something of a whirlwind year for Ejiofor, having been nominated for an Academy Award and winning a BAFTA in the past few months. The experience, it seems, is one he certainly cherished. “It was very exciting, but quite surreal. It wasn’t something I had done in that scale before so the length of time from opening the film late August, early September, until the Oscars in March, was several months of travelling with this project. But the lucky thing is, it was a project I was, as was everybody else involved in it, deeply proud of, so it was an exciting time,” before concluding, “I recommend it.”
Half of a Yellow Sun is released on April 11th, and you can read our review here.
