After enrolling at the National Youth Theatre in and attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art , at age 19 and three months into his course, Ejiofor was cast by Steven Spielberg to play a supporting role in the film Amistad as James Covey. He also voiced Scar in The Lion King His younger sister, Zain , is a CNN correspondent.
In , when Ejiofor was 11, during a family trip to Nigeria for a wedding, he and his father were driving to Lagos after the celebrations when their car was involved in a head-on crash with a lorry. His father was killed, and Ejiofor was badly injured, receiving scars that are still visible on his forehead. Ejiofor continued acting at his senior school, Dulwich College , and joined the National Youth Theatre.
He played the title role in Othello at the Bloomsbury Theatre in September , and again at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow , in , when he starred opposite Rachael Stirling in her role as Desdemona. Ejiofor made his film debut in the television film Deadly Voyage He also received acclaim for his performance as a complex antagonist The Operative in the film Serenity In , Ejiofor starred opposite Don Cheadle in Talk to Me , [ 18 ] a film based on the true story of Ralph "Petey" Greene played by Cheadle , an African-American radio personality in the s and s.
The production received favourable reviews, with particularly strong praise for Ejiofor. He starred as Mike Terry in the cult film Redbelt that received favourable reviews.
The film was based on Northup's memoir , edited in by historians Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon, of Northup's experience as a free black man in New York , who was kidnapped in and sold into slavery in Louisiana.
