How does an actor go about preparing to play another human being? Just ask Chiwetel Ejiofor who plays Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York who was abducted and sold into slavery in the Steve McQueen directed movie “12 Years a Slave”.
A true story based on Solomon Northup’s memoir published just eight years before the start of the Civil War, it’s a role which took the British born actor into the deep underbelly of American’s Southern states.
“The book was my template, but slavery was always something I felt connected to,” shares Ejiofor who visited several plantations in Louisiana and Georgia in preparation for his role as Northup. “Seeing the real plantations where everything has been preserved, from the main house to the slave huts where all of these events really occurred, I got a further sense of things.”
For the actor, whose Nigerian parents belong to the Igbo ethnic group, particularly poignant was a tour he took in Savannah, Georgia where he learned that the Igbo‘s were enslaved and dispersed to several colonies in the United States between the 16th and late 19th century.
“Hundreds of thousands of Igbos were taken out of South East Nigeria and brought to America and South America, and I think everyone from the African diaspora is connected to these issues, so telling the story of Solomon Northup felt like a responsibility.”
Known for his total devotion to the characters he performs on screen and stage, Ejiofor’s portrayal of the Nigerian taxi driver ‘Okwe’ in the thriller “Dirty Pretty Things” in 2001, earned him the ‘Best Actor’ Award at the British Independent Film Awards. Since then, he has shared the screen with several A-list actors including Denzel Washington in “American
Gangster,” Jodie Foster in “Inside Man” and Mark Whalberg in “Four Brothers.”
In “12 Years a Slave,” a vivid and authentic portrayal of American slavery, Ejiofor invests in his role as Solomon Northup with dignity.
In one gripping sequence, Northup is left to hang from a lynching noose with his feet barely touching the ground. For hours as he struggles just to keep from choking, children frolic nearby. It became one of Ejiofor’s biggest trials in fully entering the role.“The scene is very impactful and really about this incredible resolve that Solomon had to survive,” says Ejiofor. “He’s teetering on the brink of death but he holds on. It was a real physical strain to re-enact this with the exact detail with which Solomon described it in the book. It was tough emotionally and physically, but there was a feeling for me of stretching back almost 200 years and connecting to him.”
At the time of Solomon Northup’s capture in April 1841 there were 13 Slave States and 13 Free States in America. Most of this kidnapping activity occurred along the Mason-Dixon Line (where it was easy to escape back and forth between Slave and Free States), not where Northup, a well-educated New York musician, resided in Saratoga Springs. But as he traveled further south with circus employees who tempted him with an offer to make money playing his violin in New York City and D.C., the riskier the adventure became.
Directed by Steve McQueen (“Hunger”, “Shame”) and also starring Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o and Alfre Woodard, the heart of the film is in Ejiofor’s powerful performance as Northup, and what served as the actor’s North Star throughout all the scenes that took him to the brink was simply telling Solomon’s story.
“Solomon was an extraordinary person, and I still reflect on the personality of somebody who is able to survive something like this with his mind intact, be able to write about it in such a poetic, direct and humble way. That was always my kind of touchstone in trying to get as close as possible to Solomon Northup. The story is so impactful and so real,” Ejiofor continues. “The emotional journey was an extraordinary challenge, but it’s the kind of
challenge where everything else kind of falls away and the character becomes an obsession. This is the greatest working experience that I have had.”
“12 Years a Slave” releases in theaters October 18.
