Chiwetel Ejiofor's Quotes

I enjoy doing everything, comedy and drama. I just look for the characters really and what they offer.

I like to disappear into a role. I equate the success of it with a feeling of being chemically changed. That's the only way I can express it.

I was the classic middle child in some ways, the one who could have been a priest in an alternate universe.

When I first had my eyebrows waxed, I was pretty disturbed.

David Mamet was great to work with. He was everything that I thought he would be as a director. He's incredibly articulate, an easy collaborator. Extraordinarily knowledgeable about film and writing.

Depending on what your interest in theater is, I always recommend working on plays. It's a great way to be introduced to the field, and also a great way to be seen by agents and representation. I'm also a great advocate for studying acting at a drama school or a college.

I became an actor by doing school plays and youth theaters, and then National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. And then I did study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For me that was a good way to enter the field, to work in the theater.

I think I enjoy working obviously as a lead, but also you know I feel I'm also a character actor as well, so I enjoy approaching various projects in all sort of capacities. Any film I have been able to do I feel very fortunate to have been a part of.

I was already devouring literature and I was the ripe old age of 15 when I decided to be an actor. I just thought plays were the most fantastic way of expressing life. I thought I'd discovered Shakespeare - 'hey, there's a new guy in town, don't know if anyone's read him.' I was just excited about the whole thing, from day one.

It's a strange thing, but you get this click in your brain; the wonderful feeling that the entirety of a character is suddenly available and accessible to you.

This is going to sound completely absurd, but I do sometimes feel like the enjoyment of an awards ceremony or the pride in the finished article hasn't ever surpassed the joy of doing the work, of making it. The doing it is really the bit I'm there for.

At Spotify, we really want you to democratically win as a musician. We want you to win because your music is the best music.

At the end of the day, I want the music industry to be larger than what it is today.

I was born in Sweden, and in Sweden we are known for the piracy services.

I was deeply uncertain of who I was and who I wanted to be. I really thought I wanted to be a much cooler guy than what I was.

I'm not an inventor. I just want to make things better.

In general, people are comfortable sharing their music. There are two exceptions, though - Lady Gaga and Britney Spears.

People just want to have access to all of the world's music.

Put your consumers in focus, and listen to what they're actually saying, not what they tell you.

The main reason people want to pay for Spotify is really portability. People are saying, 'I want to have my music with me.'

With Spotify, people don't get it until they try it. Then they tell their friends.

I actually bought a travel guitar, and that guitar is really cool. You can actually fold the guitar, and you can plug headphones into it, but it's acoustic, or semi-acoustic.

I had two passions growing up - one was music, one was technology. I tried to play in a band for a while, but I was never talented enough to make it. And I started companies. One day came along and I decided to combine the two - and there was Spotify.

In order for a service to be social, you've really got to start from the ground up. The fact that almost a third of the U.S. population have even heard of Spotify is really because they've seen it on Facebook and friends have been sharing.

It disturbed me that the music industry had gone down the drain, even though people were listening to more music than ever and from a greater diversity of artists.

Music isn't like news, where it's what happened five minutes ago or even 10 seconds ago that matters. With music, a song from the 1960s could be as relevant to someone today as the latest Ke$ha song.