Ewell was born in Williamston, North Carolina to teenage parents. His father fought in Vietnam and served six years in the United States military while Dwight's mother took care of Dwight and his younger sister. Unhappy in her marriage, at 21 years old, Dwight's mom took the children up North where she felt that she could begin pursuing her career as a singer. The three moved several times before ending up in the rough Stella Wright Housing Projects on Prince Street, in Newark, New Jersey. Dwight and his sister attended the Louise A. Spencer Elementary School in Newark in the mid-1970s. In later years, Dwight was enrolled in The Gifted and Talented Program in the same school. It was there that his interest in the arts was nurtured. At the age of 9, he began writing plays that the teachers would allow him to direct and the students to perform. At the age of 13, Ewell auditioned for and was accepted into Arts High School in Newark, New Jersey. In 1986, he graduated, and in the fall of that year he attended the State University of New York's Theater Arts and Film Divisions Acting Program for four years.[3]
Ewell has worked with film producer Christine Vachon twice, on the films Stonewall and Kiss Me, Guido.
Ewell has not appeared in a film since 2011. Following his last film role, he was performing as a stage actor in the Los Angeles area prior to suffering an unspecified injury in 2013.[11] He subsequently worked at commercial movie theaters in Los Angeles, before expressing an intention to resume his film career in 2023. Almost nothing is known about Ewell's private life besides what was released by his publicists in the 1990s. He has no interviews on record, and despite frequently playing gay characters in film, his real-life sexual identity is unknown.
^In 2023, Ewell opened several social media accounts under the name "Mustafa Obafemi" and expressed a desire to distance himself from his former name, but it is not clear if his SAG or legal name has actually been changed.
