Name Chiwetel Ejiofor
Born Forest Gate. London. 1976.
Background Born in Britain but of Nigerian parentage. Ejiofor started acting in school plays at the age of 13. At 18 he won a scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After becoming a member of the National Youth Theatre he made his film debut in Steven Spielberg‘s 1997 Amistad. It is. however, for his stage work that he has won the most acclaim, having won a London Evening Standard theatre award in 2000 and a nomination fOr best supporting actor at the Olivier Awards in 2001. He was also awarded the Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer at the 2000 London Critics Circle Theatre Awards for his performance in Blue/Orange. His best known film role to date is that of Okwe, an illegal immigrant doctor in Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things. What’s he up to now? He's been a very busy man. Currently can see him in Four Brothers. Serenity and Kinky Boots. Also awaiting a UK release is Slow Burn, a thriller he stars in alongside Ray Liotta. On top of that he is currently doing some post production work on Spike Lee and Adam Erbacher‘s crime thriller Inside Man opposite Denzel Washington.
What he says about playing a transsexual 'I wanted Simon/Lola to be very much an artist. not lip-synching in the night club scenes but out there really giving his all. So. it became a natural progression for me to have a go at singing. A lot of the crowd were transsexuals. so it had that ring of authenticity. I felt that if I had gone on and done it badly they would have let me know.‘ lnterestlng fact According to friends. Ejiofor likes a drink and the company of fine ladies. He also allows certain people to use his nickname of ‘Chewy‘.
I Kinky Boots and Serenity are both out now on general release.
40 THE LIST 2’, 0i). ’-; No. L~’.‘:.:’.
ANIMATION MUSICAL CORPSE BRIDE (PG) 77min 0...
‘For the first year of marriage I had a bad attitude. I tended to place my wife underneath a pedestal.’
Woody Allen
Marriage can sometimes feel like a trap, especially when you are married to a dead person. In a gloomy Victorian town, fallen aristocrats Maudeline and Finis Everglot (voiced by Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney) are getting ready to marry their daughter Victoria (Emily Watson) off to the son of nouveau riche fish tycoons Nell and William van Dort (Tracey Ullman and Paul Whitehouse). The trouble is that the Van Dort’s sensitive son Victor (Johnny Depp) has gone and got himself hitched a few hours before the wedding to another lady (Helena Bonham Carter) and the contract
looks like it's binding.
Tim Burton and Mike The PJs Johnson's deliriously
DRAMA 'l RAVl-l OOUE: THE INTRUDER (L’INTRUS)
(15) 130min .000
From the .Jura mountains in France via the bustling Korean port of Pusan to the serene beauty of the South Sea Islands. director Claire Denis takes us on a startling journey across the hemispheres in the company of a mysterious loner seeking a new heart.
the guest of this ailing protagonist is as much internal as external. With Denis conveying her themes of intrusion. isolation and detachment through images and sounds rather than through dialogue and conventional narrative storytelling.
I oosely inspired by novelist Jean 1 lie Nancy's account of his own transplant. The Intruder features contributions from many of the filmiiiaker's regular creative collaborators. With the central role of Louis lrebor going to Beau Travar/‘s Michel Subor. The latter. a still Vigoroiisly athletic sixtysomething. spends much of the time here ga/ing
creepy and atmospheric stop motion animation treads that fine line between morality fable and gothic melodrama with considerable aplomb. Playing neatly
to many of Burton’s obsessions (the drawings of Gustave Doré, societal divide, Gaudi, Eastern Block
animation of the 19605 and 705 etc), Corpse Bride is
like a version of Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld as rewritten by Julius Arsenic and Old Lace Epstein and Tom Waits. As with 1993‘s The Nightmare Before Christmas, this is punctuated by Danny Elfman‘s odd, syntax-perverse show tunes and soundtracking trademarks. Despite all his wild card weirdness Elfman is on rare form here - he even performs as Bonejangles the singing skeleton in the film’s one brilliant musical set piece. With its pro- zombie message, short running time and disgustingly talented and coherent cast and crew, Corpse Bride is a
major coup for Burton and co. (Paul Dale)
into space. as Agnes Oodard's camera foCuses on his inscrutable face. And the film represents this emotionally distant character's dreams and nightmares. his longings and regrets. not least for his estranged relationship with his son (Gregoire Colin).
Backed by Stuart Staples' dissonant guitar score. The Intruder uses reCurring symbolic images. while dissoIVing the boundaries between fantasy and reality: hence
I General re/ease from Fri 27 Oct. See prey/en: page 38.
the shots of hearts. dogs ioriginally wild but semi tamed by their ownersl. border crossings ilegal and illegall. coffins. ships. landscapes and oceans.
Ultimately. who can resist a fill” in which a laughing Beatrice Dalle (credited as the Queen of the Northern Hemisphere). triumphantly powers a team of huskies across the snowicovered Wilds’? i’lom Dawson‘i I Film/rouse. Edinburgh from in 2 7- Thu 2’33 Oct only. See iriteriiew. page 35).
SWASl-IBUCKI I ll THE LEGEND OF ZORRO (PG) 130min O.
The terrible irony here is that for a film that's about MeXice's most famous folk hero land one of the world's first superheroes). The / egend of ./o/io !S a horriny l'O£l(Iil()ll£lT\. xenophobic piece of cinema. Yes. yes. nine out of ten Hollywood studio films are guilty of the same. but to have a plot revolving around Old California Joining the Union and its Spanish citizens exclainiing that becoming American