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
Working at BBC, at the head of one of the top dramas, is a tradition for great actors.
I'd rather a young black actor read about success as opposed to how tough it was. I get these roles because I can act and that's it. Hopefully that's it.
Actors tend to not know how their performances are going to actually be used. Even though the script says one thing, in the edit, it can be something else.
Yeah, I know, any time you hear an actor say, 'I do music', you cringe. But I want to be gradual with my music. I want to earn my stripes.
White actors still get way more money in Hollywood. It's been that way for a very long time. I hope it'll change, but it's a matter of forcing that change.
I'm not a popular actor. I don't necessarily want to be famous. I want to be known for great work. I want to be known to surprise audiences.
As an actor, you're trained to do the right thing, be politically correct, say your lines, say the right thing about the people you're working with.
I love to play different roles. That's just the kind of actor I am.
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.
Whether it's music or acting, that creativity all comes from the same source.
Twenty or 30 years from now, I'm going to be on a beach in Jamaica.
I don't have a place that I call home at the moment because there's no point. I mean, I'm a traveling circus for a while. It's weird. Like, if I wanted to go home, there's nowhere to go. I just go to a hotel. But I've kind of gotten used to it.
Not obsessed with particularly Nike, but sneakers in general. I love them.
I did green screen for the first time! I wouldn't like to do a whole movie of green screen, though. You kind of forget the plot a little - like being in a Broadway play and doing it over and over and forgetting your line halfway through.