Chiwetel Ejiofor is getting honest about working with Charlize Theron for their latest Netflix action-packed film, The Old Guard. Ejiofor praises his co-star and expresses his jealousy of her flawless stunts!
Appearing on the cover for GQ Hype, Ejiofor looks handsome as ever and explores difficult topics of racism in the industry, the filming process, and his new move.
Of his co-star, Ejiofor admits there's a hint of envy saying, "I envy Charlize, you know? I’ll admit it. She is able to do something that I have never quite managed to do and that is tell a narrative through physicality."
"That is really difficult and this isn’t the first film she’s shown she can do this – take Mad Max: Fury Road, for example," he says.
"There is an exquisite poetry in seeing Charlize wield a four-foot axe – and with humour too, I might add. To put all the nuance of a character into a very complex fight sequence using only choreography is quite astonishing," he continued.
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Chiwetel Ejiofor shares insight into the film industry
The actor goes on to share his worries about the film industry as it navigates through the global Coronavirus pandemic.
"It’s going to need these big films, the likes of Marvel, the 'James Bond' franchise and so on," he says.
"I think that sort of rhetoric about what is considered cinema and what isn’t, being too picky and so on, is just barking up the wrong tree. The industry is in deep trouble at the moment, many jobs, theatres, venues are on the line. So let’s focus on survival, rather than this sort of finicky artistic debate," he added.
Ejiofor then goes on to talk about the current global transitions towards a more inclusive society and opens up about the U.K's Black Lives Matter movement.
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"Look, I know what non-representation feels like, as do so many Black people in this country," he shares.
"To walk into a room and not see anyone who looks like you? I had to go to America to get the work I wanted, rather than get the support and work I wanted in the U.K. and that, to me, was shocking. Shocking," he said.
Ejiofor then dives into what it was like living in London during the 1980s and shares a personal experience.
"At times I remember I would have to come home from school through National Front marches, with my father holding my hand as we’d bolt across the road," he revealed.
"I know what lack of representation means. I know how it can fester and build ideas of the ‘other’, how it can create xenophobia, and what that feels like… fear of the stranger. So am I optimistic? Yes… Yes, I am. Just cautiously so," he added.
Ejiofor and Theron star in the new Netflix movie The Old Guard, available for streaming now.
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