Idris Elba
Idris Elba
Idrissa Akuna "Idris" Elba, OBE is an English actor and musician. He is known for playing drug baron Russell "Stringer" Bell on the HBO series The Wire, Detective John Luther on the BBC One series Luther, and Nelson Mandela in the biographical film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. He has been nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film, winning one, and was nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy Award...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth6 September 1972
CityLondon, England
Sean Connery wasn't the Scottish James Bond and Daniel Craig wasn't the blue-eyed James Bond. So if I played him, I don't want to be called the black James Bond.
I dont have a place that I call home at the moment because theres no point. I mean, Im a traveling circus for a while. Its weird. Like, if I wanted to go home, theres nowhere to go. I just go to a hotel. But Ive kind of gotten used to it.
I love bikes. I used to own one, but I fell off it when I was younger and that was the end of my bike riding days until now.
What really excites me in a project is when it goes in a way you haven't been before.
When you come from an under-privileged background, oftentimes, you feel a little overwhelmed by your education or your lack of.
Even when I went to America I didn't work for four years. It wasn't like I came to New York and it was the land of milk and honey. It was just as much of a hard graft. But there's a lot more opportunity nowadays across the board for actors, no matter what color you are, with the Internet and small productions.
I love to play different roles. That's just the kind of actor I am.
What kind of role do you play after someone like Stringer, you know what I mean? You play another gangster. What's the point of that? I've played the gangster. I try to keep it really varied; it just makes for more of a fun and interesting career.
There's a fast-track if you can do the networking. For some personalities it works, but for mine it doesn't.
I come from an era, in my world, where you just had to define yourself as who you are and what you do. I happen to be an actor. I happen to be someone that loves to act, that also likes music, that also likes to speak, and that also has an opinion.
As much as it's nice to step into that massive world of Hollywood and be a big, famous actor, I prefer the career of actors that have really chosen smartly and done really amazing performances. Maybe they're not as known, but their careers are a bit more interesting.
Africans, we hold on to our youths and whip them into shape.
The only thing I change mainly is my sneakers. I love sneakers. But everything's sort of black or jeans. Jeans, always.
I love working. I'm a workaholic and I'm really privileged for some of the jobs I get offered and so I just want to keep going.