From his prized debut in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad to Netflix’s The Old Guard, British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor has played a wide range of remarkable characters in his 23-year career. The actor plays a pivotal role in The Old Guard opposite Charlize Theron, as an ex-CIA official named Copley responsible for putting the film’s events in motion. As the superhero film reached its closing moments, we learned that there is more to Copley than what was initially assumed.
Chiwetel once played a similar character in Alfonso Cuaron’s sci-fi film Children of Men. In an interview with Collider, Chiwetel said he is always drawn to and intrigued by such characters. “Having characters that are complex and sit within that grey area is interesting,” he shared. “They do things that are morally or ethically ambiguous. They have their reasons, and sometimes these are reasons that we emotionally connect to. Why they’re doing what they’re doing, where they’re going with it—that reflects real life. But I also do think there is space for out-and-out villainy.”
Those who are into Marvel films are aware that The Old Guard isn’t Chiwetel’s first experience in a superhero film. The actor played a grey-shaded character Mordo in Doctor Strange, opposite Benedict Cumberbatch. The finale of that film definitely hinted at the return of Mordo in a sequel.
To the question of how Copley is different from Mordo, Chiwetel said, “With Mordo, and the way that he looks at his capacity and his ability is very kind of grounded in – even though it’s in that sort of mystical realm – it’s something he so completely owns, and he has a psychology that is very complete in its own self-centeredness in a way, that he understands his self in the world and his place in it in a very powerful way whereas Copley has a much more sort of insecure relationship to these things, you know? That he is somebody who is driven by emotion and his own kind of past failings in a way, and the things that he wishes he could rewrite, and even the kind of way he wishes he could rewrite the world in a sense.”The BAFTA-winning actor will be next seen in the Antoine Fuqua-directed sci-fi action film Infinite, in which he is sharing the screen with Mark Wahlberg.