Throwing Himself Into His Roles

What a difference a couple years makes.

When last we talked to Chiwetel Ejiofor, the actor was checking in from the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, where he was attending the U.S. premiere of the British cross-dressing comedy "Kinky Boots." The hardest thing to get used to in the role of flamboyant drag queen and shoe model Lola? Not the towering stiletto heels, Ejiofor said, but all the plucking and waxing of body hair.

On a rainy morning last month, we sat down in a Washington hotel room to get an update on the physical demands of his profession from the versatile 33-year-old Londoner, in town to promote "Redbelt," writer-director David Mamet's latest meditation on machismo and morality, set in the Los Angeles underworld of professional Brazilian jujitsu competition. (See review on Page 28.)

The occupational hazard this time? Contrary to what you might think (and the intensive lessons the actor says the role entailed), Ejiofor insists that he wasn't the slightest bit worried about injuries . . . at least not his own. "I think there was only one occasion actually where maybe I slightly injured one of the stunt men," he says, laughing. "But he was all right, and it wasn't too bad."

As for hurting himself, that concern never entered Ejiofor's mind. "The truth is, when you're doing it for a movie, you're not going to get cauliflower ears and bloody noses," he says, before contrasting the Hollywood version of the sport with its more physically demanding real-world counterpart. "But if you're doing it on a Saturday afternoon with four ex-cops and a Marine, you probably will."

Ejiofor may not exactly be a household name yet. (For one thing, who knows how to pronounce it? Try "CHEW-it-ell EDGE-oh-four.") Nevertheless, the actor's face -- handsome, despite a prominent scar on his forehead -- is becoming better known on this side of the Atlantic, thanks to roles in such recent films as last year's "American Gangster." He won a 2008 Independent Spirit Award for his performance as the strait-laced friend and colleague of ex-con and D.C. talk-show host Ralph "Petey" Greene (Don Cheadle) in "Talk to Me."

But despite the increasing level of public recognition for his work, the actor hasn't yet found details of his private life splashed across the supermarket checkout magazines.

And that's just fine with him.

In interviews, Ejiofor maintains a scrupulous boundary between the personal and the professional. Oh, he has answered questions about, say, his childhood. As a boy, Ejiofor survived a serious car accident that killed his Nigerian doctor father (hence the scar). But probe too deeply about such matters, and the actor backs off. When questions about that kind of thing come up, Ejiofor explains, "it all suddenly becomes much more uncomfortable, because in a sense I'm not really there for that."

To the extent that he can, he tries to discourage what he calls the "bizarre" sense of ownership that much of today's public demonstrates toward celebrities. As unavoidable as an interview like this one may be, he says, "it's not a simple exercise in self-promotion or something." What's more, Ejiofor says, "I think it's kind of important that it's not."

That's because the more you know about an actor as a person, the harder it is to believe in the character. Some of the actors Ejiofor most respects are those whose private lives, in his words, represent "something of an enigma," despite their fame: Daniel Day-Lewis, Al Pacino, even Matt Damon.

"It's important to live in order to do the work, I think," says Ejiofor, explaining that the ability to remain a blank slate is what makes him, or any other actor, good at the job. "A lot of acting is about living," he says simply, "as opposed to anything else."