Chiwetel Ejiofor, OBE, and Don Warrington, OBE

[spiralsheep]

Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity) and Don Warrington (Red Dwarf and Doctor Who) were both awarded OBEs in the latest honours list (source).

What's an OBE? S/he is an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (no, I don't have an opinion on whether people should accept the "Empire" label although, for the record, some people such as Benjamin Zephaniah

Comments

[spiralsheep]

He's good in everything he's done. I've never seen him give a less than outstanding performance. His acting is intense.

He's also gorgeous. :-)

[spiralsheep]

I thought Ejiofor's performance in Kinky Boots was the only consistently good part of the film... except for the boots and shoes, natch. ;-)

I thought his performance in Serenity did rescue the whole film from creeping averageness though.

[angelsscream]

I love me some Chiwetel! squee!

[spiralsheep]

:-)

[dustdaughter]

Squee! Loved him in all the movies you mentioned. He also held his own with Don Cheadle in Talk to Me. It's about time he's gotten some awards.

I kinda wish Ejiofor would be cast as the 11th Doctor, too. Stephen Moffat would win my love forever if he could make that happen.

And he also gets props in my book for not changing his name. I bet agents and managers have suggested it over and over. He may have wanted to change it himself after someone mangled it for the millionth time. I feel his pain on that score. He must have the patience of a saint to put up with that by now.

[spiralsheep]

He received a Laurence Olivier Award for his theatre work too.

Ejiofor would make a great Doctor but I doubt if he'd take the role even if it was offered to him.

he also gets props in my book for not changing his name. I bet agents and managers have suggested it over and over. He may have wanted to change it himself after someone mangled it for the millionth time. I feel his pain on that score. He must have the patience of a saint to put up with that by now.

Yes, so much yes.

[dustdaughter]

Ejiofor would make a great Doctor but I doubt if he'd take the role even if it was offered to him.

Why do you think that? Do you think he'd worried about being typecast in sci-fi? Or that producers and the audience would expect him to mimic Tennant's performance?

[spiralsheep]

Either Ejiofor himself or his agents seem to have positioned him in the market as a srs actor. That doesn't mean he couldn't cross over into pop culture telly, Adrian Lester did in Hustle, but it does mean that if he had conflicting offers of work he might be inclined to take the project with more srs cred. But, of course, I don't know if srs actor is how he's chosen to present himself or whether he's merely been grasping the opportunities which were offered to him. Ejiofor is also a bigger league actor than any actor previously offered the job. He should be getting better offers. Whether he is getting better offers or not is another matter.

I'd hope the next actor to play the Doctor is asked to make the character noticeably different from Ten but that might be my old school preferences showing. I enjoyed Eccleston's performance better than I'm enjoying Tennant's anyway (although some of that is probably the writing and direction).