When does Chiwetel Ejiofor feel most alive?

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The star joined Tom Hiddleston at the SXSW London premiere of The Life of Chuck. Report by Nelsonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

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00:00I would be disappointed to hear that you don't get this a thousand times a day, but I was recently re-watching Children of Men.

00:06My God, that film holds up.

00:07Yeah, no, no, it's special.

00:08What experience that is.

00:09And it makes me wonder, as soon as you tell so many interesting stories since then, what is it you look for now?

00:14What is it the thing that gets you out of bed?

00:16Yeah, that's a good question.

00:18Yeah, no, it's story.

00:20It's still story, you know.

00:21It's story and character.

00:23Obviously, they're often just intertwined, but you find that you have a great and interesting character,

00:27and it's part of a fascinating story or fascinating world, you know, and that always engages me.

00:34You know, I'm just, you know, and in this occasion, it was obviously a brilliant short story by Stephen King,

00:40and Mike Flanagan is creating this world and pulling this world onto the page,

00:44and so I'm reading this screenplay, and I'm immediately down the rabbit hole, you know,

00:48and that's, to me, you know, I think you know very quickly whether somebody's writing on a wavelength

00:53that you're like, oh, I kind of, I want to be part of whatever this is,

00:57and then I couldn't predict where it was going at all, you know,

01:00and it was just, it was entertaining and it was emotional, you know,

01:05and I had a real experience with it.

01:06Mike's obviously known for the scares.

01:08Was it something that attracted you going through the script and not finding those things,

01:12not finding those little kind of breadcrumbs of terror along the way?

01:15Well, you know, when I was first reading it, I didn't know what was going to, you know,

01:19it wasn't that, you know, it wasn't, I didn't know where it was going, you know,

01:23and it could have easily gone a few different ways, and I was quite open to any of it

01:28because I just felt like actually the character's fascinating,

01:31the way the story's being told is fascinating.

01:34It has such kind of depth and meaning to it that, yeah, tell me the story,

01:39whichever way it goes, you know, and I was excited to carry on reading.

01:42I loved where it did go, you know.

01:45Finally, it's a film that seems to celebrate living in the moment,

01:47whether that be the end of the world or not.

01:49So I wondered, when do you feel like you're in it the most,

01:54you're living in the moment the most?

01:55Is it when you're on stage, is it when you're on camera,

01:58or is it doing something completely unexpected?

02:00When do you feel alive?

02:01Well, that's a good question.

02:02I suppose I feel the most alive in the work, you know, if I'm honest,

02:07and that is, you know, that's a good thing and a bad thing sometimes,

02:11you know, that you kind of, that you hope that the answer is,

02:14you know, ah, you know, it's paintballing.

02:16Yeah, exactly, friends, family, those are what I feel.

02:19But, no, I guess if I'm honest, it's really like when I'm in that moment

02:23of discovery, of artistic discovery, you know,

02:26and with people who are in the same kind of,

02:29in the same sort of mode, in the same pursuit,

02:32you know, that's very exciting, you know, it's great.

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