Chiwetel Ejiofor says dad dying in car crash when he was 11 changed view of life

Chiwetel Ejiofor, the star of 12 years a Slave, has been speaking about how he coped following the tragic and heartbreaking loss of his father when he was just 11-years-old

Chiwetel Ejiofor has opened up about his traumatic childhood and how he coped with losing his father in a deadly car crash.

The actor has discussed the harrowing moment he found out his dad Arinze had died when he was just 11.

He lost his life in the smash in Nigeria and Chiwetel says it changed his views on the world growing up. The vehicle his father was in collided with a truck while driving along a motorway

The 44-year-old has been speaking to British GQ about how he re-built his life after the painful loss.

He said: “Grief is something you live with forever in different ways, when you lose a parent young, it has a profound effect on the way you view life.

“At an early age you realise the value of some things and the preciousness of life itself, which is something most people acquire later on.

“Certain fears or neuroses you definitely carry. Some are justified but you do lose a lot of ideas about knowledge.”

The 12 Years A Slave star has previously spoken about the fight for racial equality.

“It’s going to take a sustained generational effort to deprogramme these ideas of racial hierarchy, but BLM has been a very successful campaign to get the west to think in a certain way,” he said.

“A lot of the west has tried to remove some of that programming. But it’s a long and arduous process because certain people cling to it in a very fervent way.”

Chiwetel has recently been speaking about his latest role – an extra-terrestrial who comes to Earth as part of a plan to save both it and his home planet.

In new Showtime series, The Man Who Fell to Earth he loves being an alien and told CNN it was a role he couldn’t resist.

“I thought that the character of Faraday was just such a great opportunity,” he said.

“As an actor to go on such a crazy but beautiful kind of arc and journey with this character, really to find something remarkable.”

The series is billed as an “inspired continuation” of the 1976 science fiction film starring David Bowie.

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