Entertainment

You may have trouble pronouncing his name, but there's no denying Chiwetel Ejiofor's screen presence.

Born in London to Nigerian parents, he had a small part in Amistad before leaping to prominence alongside Audrey Tautou in Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things. The 33-year-old actor has since distinguished himself as a versatile performer of palpable intensity and intelligence.

His new film is David Mamet's Redbelt, the story of a jujitsu instructor whose samurai-like code of honor is tested by nefarious types in the Hollywood and professional fight games. We recently sat down with Mr. Ejiofor and asked him about some of his favorite roles.

By the way: It's pronounced "chew-it-tell edge-oh-for."

' Redbelt' (opens today): Mr. Ejiofor threw himself into daily Brazilian jujitsu training to play Mike Terry, an instructor who refuses to fight competitively, until his rigorous code faces a stern test.

Mr. Ejiofor: "It's a film about our contemporary landscape being analyzed and what we consider to be a contemporary ambivalence toward morality or commerce, or the morality of commerce. If somebody has a strict moral code, how do they exist within that sense of business-minded professionalism? Are they ridiculous? Or do they have every right to live the way they choose to live? And should the world be more accessible to people who have such high moral strictures? He's not dogmatic or saintly, but he does believe in honor. People don't make films about people who believe in those things anymore. It seems worth exploring."

'Othello': Jujitsu takes effort but so does playing Shakespeare's tragic Moor. Mr. Ejiofor recently starred opposite Ewan McGregor and won an Olivier Award in a Donmar Warehouse production in England.

Mr. Ejiofor: "It was amazing, and I loved every minute of it. But it was absolutely draining. Shakespeare would laugh at the concept of doing those shows eight times a week. They weren't designed to be done like that. On two days a week we did two shows a day. Two Othellos a day is just not good. It's really brutal. You clean off the sweat, you wipe away the blood and the tears and then you put on the Act One costume and wait for the Act One audience to come in. Then you do it again like nothing has happened, knowing that you've got to get to that crazy pitch at the end all over again. We were doing 25 acts of Shakespeare in three days. It was challenging."

' Talk to Me' (2007): Mr. Ejiofor played Dewey Hughes, a real-life D.C. radio pro who changes with the times throughout his friendship with firebrand Petey Greene (Don Cheadle).

Mr. Ejiofor: "It's a film about an enduring friendship. We all have them, but somehow they're not represented in film that much. It shows the ebbs and flows of the relationship, and how the political and social landscape of the world changes and how the relationship is affected. It really opened up a kind of fascinating way of looking at time and looking at friendships and the way people react and interact together. Don is one of my favorite people to work with in the world. He's an incredibly generous actor and great fun to be around and just very, very talented."

' American Gangster' (2007): Mr. Ejiofor was dazzled by the craft of this Ridley Scott movie, in which he played the brother and colleague of Denzel Washington's '70s Harlem drug kingpin.

Mr. Ejiofor: "It was like we all got in a time machine and went back to the '70s with a camera and shot a movie. That was how it felt on set. There was no sense of 'You're entering the funk zone. Now we're going back in the day.' That was there, but it was so blended in. It just felt present. I would walk onto the set, and I wouldn't know where the set started and where the rest of the world ended. I've been on sets where suddenly you see everybody with the funked-up Afros and the pumps, and you're like, OK, these are extras in the movie, and we're about to start filming. This wasn't like that at all. Suddenly New York was Ridley's canvas and everybody was part of it. I think that film really worked."