Chiwetel Ejiofor explores 'moral gray' in 'Triple 9'
Going toe-to-toe with Chiwetel Ejiofor can be risky business.
Take it from his Triple 9 co-star Kate Winslet, who was shooting a scene with the British actor when a stuntman's chair flipped over and landed on her foot, breaking her big toe.
"That's the crazy thing," Ejiofor says with a laugh. "We're firing all these guns and doing all this crazy stuff, and there's a million areas where someone could've gotten injured. But the only person that did was Kate, who wasn't involved in any of those sequences."
Fortunately for Ejiofor, 38, he walked away with only minor bumps and bruises filming Triple 9 (in theaters Friday), a gritty heist thriller in which he plays the jaded Michael Atwood, a former Navy SEAL-turned-criminal mastermind. Michael leads a gang of crooked cops and bandits (Anthony Mackie, Aaron Paul, Norman Reedus and Clifton Collins Jr.) and answers to a sleazy Russian-Israeli mobster (Winslet), who convinces him to take on another job in order to protect his young son.
"There was something interesting about a guy who's found himself in this kind of moral gray, to such a degree that he's more comfortable robbing a bank than he is communicating with his child or trying to work out how to be a father," Ejiofor says. "There was something fascinating about that kind of psychology. ... In a strange way, you understand more about the nature of these characters through the heists that they pull off."
Four months prior to shooting the film in Atlanta in 2014, director John Hillcoat (The Road) paired Ejiofor with an ex-Navy SEAL, who trained the actor in weaponry and tactical maneuvering.
"All of that was very intense, but it was so worth it," Ejiofor says. "Some characters you do slightly more intellectual research, but there's something about trying to understand their physicality and what their skill sets are and firing thousands of rounds of ammunition. It really gave me an entry point of what his psychological space might be."
Ejiofor is currently in his native United Kingdom shooting Marvel's highly anticipated Doctor Strange (out Nov. 4), in which he plays supervillain Baron Mordo opposite Benedict Cumberbatch's superhero. Although he won't be able to make it to Los Angeles for Sunday's Academy Awards, he says he hopes to tune in to the ceremony, where his latest film, Ridley Scott's The Martian, is up for seven awards, including best picture.
Just two years ago, Ejiofor was a first-time best actor nominee for 12 Years A Slave, which won best picture. He was one of three actors of color nominated in 2014 — a stark contrast to this year's all-white acting field, an issue the Academy hopes to assuage by increasing minority membership. Still, Ejiofor echoes his peers who have said that changes need to happen at the studio level, with more diverse talent in front of and behind the camera.
"The Academy can do what it can to increase diversity, that seems to be a good plan," Ejiofor says. "Making changes at the beginning of the process is probably of more value than making changes at the end."