Washington, DC — When the figures came in for top-grossing movie in the United States for the weekend of March 24-26, the leader was Inside Man, directed by African-American Spike Lee and featuring British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, whose roots are in Nigeria.

The film, which opened March 24 in theaters across the United States, topped all other films in the country by grossing $29 million on its first weekend. In the story, written by Russell Gewirtz, Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington plays a no-nonsense New York City detective and Ejiofor plays his partner. The two must handle the tense situation after a gang of thieves takes over a bank and holds customers and bank workers hostage.

Employing a convincing American accent, Ejiofor is at Washington's side throughout the intricate dealings involved in resolving the situation. Speaking of their working relationship on the film, Washington told interviewer Kam Williams of the African-American Literature Book Club, "Chiwetel is really an elegant and good man, and a great actor."

Ejiofor debuted in film at 19 with a small role in Stephen Spielberg's 1997 Amistad and came to the attention of many Americans in 2003 in Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things. In that film, he starred as a Nigerian doctor who experiences the unpalatable side of London life as an illegal immigrant working around the clock as a minicab driver and a receptionist in a seedy hotel. The film played to smaller audiences than Inside Man but received much critical acclaim in the United States.

Ejiofor was born in Forest Gate, east London, in 1974, to Nigerian parents -- his father a doctor, his mother a pharmacist. He has a great affinity with Nigeria and goes there regularly to visit his grandparents and extended family, according to press reports.

He started acting at 13, in school plays and in the National Youth Theatre. "It was a strong impulse," one article quotes the actor as saying. "I immediately recognized that it was something I needed to do. I'm not sure where it came from, but it was something I needed to be part of."'

Ejiofor went to Dulwich College, London, and to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, a leading British drama school. In 2000, he was voted the Outstanding Newcomer in the London Evening Standard awards for his performance in Blue/Orange, a play about a mental patient who claims to be the son of an exiled African dictator. In the following years, he received or was nominated for several other awards.

In 2003, the Washington Area Film Critics Association nominated him for Best Actor forDirty Pretty Things and he won a British Independent Film Award for Best Performance by an Actor for that role.

Critic Amy Raphael described Ejiofor's work in the digital edition of The Observer (London) after he did Dirty Pretty Things: "It doesn't happen very often. Perhaps once every few years. Maybe less. Along comes a young British actor with talent to take your breath away.

"There are plenty of good actors but few truly great ones. Even fewer whose magic works on both stage and screen."

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)