-Last night I went out to dinner.
You were also at the restaurant.
It was lovely to see you beforehand.
-It was good to see you.
Except, you know, I was wearing a lovely outfit.
I had a blue blazer, a white shirt and khaki pants,
and so were the waiters -- exactly the same.
-Yeah.
-So when I went to the toilet,
someone asked me for their oysters.
I was like, "Dude." [ Laughter ]
-I was -- 'cause when I saw you, you looked great in clothes.
I saw your outfit, I go, "Man, Idris has got it figured out."
And then I walked in the restaurant and realized,
"Oh, Idris has a problem." [ Laughter ]
Yeah. Idris is about to find out he has a problem.
You were very nice, as well.
You asked about my mother. -Hillary.
-Yeah, my mom Hillary. -How is she?
-She's great.
You met her a few years ago at a party in L.A.
-Yep. -She was a huge fan of yours.
You were very kind to her. -She told you about that?
-She did tell me about that, yeah.
She told my dad, too.
She pretty much brings you up to my dad every day.
[ Laughter ]
His name is Larry.
Since she met you, she calls him "Not Idris."
-Oh. -Yeah.
-Oh! Larry, Larry. That's not nice. Sorry, Larry.
-But here, I want you to know something,
because she's a huge fan of yours.
But there's an opening right now for you, because the top --
You're not the top.
The top is always, for my mom, Daniel Day-Lewis.
-Who? -Daniel Day-Lewis.
-I'm just joking. -Wonderful actor.
-Yeah, I know, very good.
-You should definitely look at his work.
But you know, now he's saying he might get out of the game.
-Really? -Yeah.
-Yes! No! -Exactly.
-But I'm just saying,
if you keep up your high quality of work,
I feel like you could hit that new pinnacle for my mom.
-Oh, really? -Yeah.
-Again? Just joking. [ Cheers and applause ]
No, no, no.
[ Cheers and applause ]
No, no, no. This is awkward.
-It's great. No, like six hours from now, when this airs,
the roof of our home, my childhood home,
is gonna blow off. [ Laughter ]
-Larry's like, "Who?"
-"Why?!"
Congratulations on this film.
This is a series of eight books, the "Dark Tower" books.
This is the first one.
Are you a fan of this sort of fantasy/horror genre?
-You know what? I'm a fan of Stephen King.
I think he's an incredible author. Right? He's great.
[ Cheers and applause ]
He's a little dark.
-Yeah, he's a little dark. This one's particularly dark.
-But "The Shining" -- I was a fan of "The Shining."
And also Jack Nicholson.
But, you know, I wanted to be in a blockbuster.
I wanted to play a big hero in a film.
And who better than Stephen King to be the author of that?
-And it was interesting.
I read an article where Ron Howard, as a producer, said
that when they were casting it,
the character -- Stephen King wrote the character
to be sort of the biggest badass in the world.
And when they started saying,
"Who currently is the biggest badass?"
They said you came up right away. That's high praise.
-Really? -Yeah.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Thank you. Thanks.
But, no, they cast me because Stephen King actually wanted
Clint Eastwood. -Yeah.
-And said, "Who looks like Clint Eastwood?"
[ Laughter ]
-Blatantly me, so that's how that worked out.
-Yeah.
That worked out great, and I should point out --
it wasn't in the clip, but the villain in this film,
the wonderful Matthew McConaughey.
-Yes. -I feel like that's a good --
You guys are a good yin and yang.
-Matthew's great. And he's really good in the film.
He's very different. He's very stoic, evil guy.
-Yeah.
-In real life. Just joking, Matt.
But no, in the film, he's really good. He's great.
-That's great.
Was this one of those action films where you have to do
a lot of training, and a lot of figuring out
how to play the part?
-Yeah, 'cause we wanted -- The film is quite grounded.
"The Dark Tower" is quite grounded.
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, it looked like a normal, everyday thing, yeah.
-But no, the director, Nik Arcel, wanted us to --
at least the gunslinging, all the shooting and stuff.
Six-shooting is a sport.
Reloading and shooting on target,
so that's where I started my training.
And we wanted to make that look as real as possible.
-Great. Did you get to be okay at it?
-I'm great at it. -Oh, okay.
You didn't have to jump all the way to great.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-No, but -- I had an amazing time making that film.
We shot it in South Africa,
which has some of the most beautiful landscapes
in the world, in the eastern cape.
And then we shot in L.A. as well.
-And this is very exciting -- We were talking last night.
You directed your first film? -Yeah.
-And so this is based on a book called "Yardie" from the '80s?
Is that when it was written?
-Yeah, so it's a novel from the '80s
which follows a young Jamaican boy that ends up in London
and becomes a gangster, and he's not really a gangster.
And I chose that film
because England has a big Jamaican community.
I'm West African, but the Jamaican community sort of
is the overriding influential black community.
So I felt very connected to the story,
and I wanted to see it happen, and I loved it.
It was probably the best experience as a filmmaker,
as an actor, to direct a film because you're talking to
every single department about so many different levels,
It was wicked. It was great.
-As a director, did you then look back and say,
"Oh, Idris the actor had been unfair to directors"?
-Oh, completely. -Really? Yeah.
-No, seriously.
And the worst people I hated on my set was actors.
-Yeah.
-Divas. -Divas.
-What? Get here on time. What, you don't know your lines?
Get out of here! [ Laughter ]
No, but I had a great time being able
to speak the language of acting but not be on camera.
-That's really exciting.
And now, we've also talked about this.
You're also a deejay. -Yep.
-Because you have to be good at everything
and make the rest of us feel bad.
Oh, you're a six-shooter and a deejay
and my mom's favorite person. No, it's great.
-Kind of like your stepdad.
[ Laughter, cheers, applause ]
-I'm sorry, Dad. I shouldn't have brought it up.
-You set that up.
-That would be awesome, though. [ Laughter ]
I would love, just like -- I mean, it wouldn't be a lot.
Just like one weekend a month? [ Laughter ]
-Okay.
-And you've done some soundtracks of films before?
-Yeah, I did -- so, for "Luther," my TV show,
I made a soundtrack for that.
And basically what I do is take the themes of the show
and work with musicians and make original songs.
I did one for "Luther," did one for "Mandela,"
and I'm going to do one for "Yardie" as well.