It’s hard to truly describe the experience of watching Chiwetel Ejiofer in 12 YEARS A SLAVE. Playing Solomon Northup – whose true, terrifying story this film is based upon – Ejiofer disappears in an all-too-real way into his role as a pre-Civil War free black man who quite literally wakes up one day to discover he has become a slave. To witness this good person’s transition from family man to demoralized servant is a tragedy, and Ejiofer spares us nothing in his performance, which allows us to feel every ounce of his anguish, sadness and, startlingly, hope…
I spoke to Ejiofer about the difficulty of playing the role, the toughest sequence to film (hard to choose, surely), and whether or not he was able to leave all the pain behind when the cameras stopped rolling.
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What’s Not Allowed