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
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.
I'm not interested in making all-black films - I come from a very diverse culture; I want to work with every type of person. I work a lot with women executives because they seem to be a lot more open minded about that and a lot more progressive in that way.
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.
The only thing I change mainly is my sneakers. I love sneakers. But everything's sort of black or jeans. Jeans, always.
The less I talk about being black, the better.
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.
People expect me to be that guy. But I'm more east London boy than east Baltimore.
If you are going to call a film a 'black film' then you have to make a film that represents everyone that's black, which is almost impossible. That is why white films are not called white films, they are just called 'films.'
I was really ambitious, so I was innovative. I was one of the first DJs to do live calls, 'cause I found this phone device that would pick up other people's voices.
I have one of these bodies. When I was younger, I could never put weight on, and now that I'm a little older, there's a natural sort of chubbiness coming. But honestly, if I work out for a week, it drops off in no time.