THE FUSE

On the night of March 2, 2014, the British-Nigerian actor sat in the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood as the film that had made him a star was named Best Picture. The movie was 12 Years a Slave, and Chiwetel Ejiofor had carried it, playing Solomon Northup, a free Black man kidnapped and sold into bondage, in a performance of such restraint and devastation that it earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. A son of Nigerian immigrants from the East End of London stood at the very summit of American cinema.