Hi, I'm Idris Elba,
and I'm here to chat about the career
of Idris Elba.
I read somewhere the other day
that Idris Elba has been in 100 films.
Really? A hundred films?
Nah, it's not 100 films.
I think they must have meant television and films,
not… not 100 films, surely.
Idris Elba's career kicked off in 1994,
where we saw him for the first time
in Space Precinct,
even if we didn't hear him
thanks to some infamously bad dubbing.
Sublight Pizza, eh.
About time. Meet you in the bay.
Thankfully, we soon got the full Idris
in the classic British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
Hey, has anyone ever told you
you look a bit like Sean Connery?
No.
Um, Ab Fab was just, like, a hoot
as you can imagine.
I'll never forget that.
You know, back in the day, you know, the BBC used
to make you rehearse for five days.
I spent five days with Jennifer Saunders
and they were just pissing about.
"We don't need five days for this,
we'll just have a laugh," and we did
for, you know, five days, have a laugh every day.
So I really enjoyed that.
There were slightly fewer laughs
in the 1998 British sci-fi thriller,
Ultraviolet.
I did a show called Ultraviolet
which was on Channel 4, which I loved.
I played a character called Vaughn.
Fond memories of that.
Don't suppose you saw where they headed, then?
I didn't stick around.
Yeah, I'm glad to hear it.
I was worried you were going to do something stupid.
Nah.
That's your department.
But it was in 2002
that Idris truly exploded onto our radars
as the ice-cold drug kingpin Stringer Bell in The Wire.
We ain't got a dream no more, man.
We got real shit.
Real estate we can touch.
Yeah, The Wire was probably
the most impactful career, uh, move for me.
Uh, one of the best characters I've ever played,
and it came at such a pivotal time for me.
You know, living in America for a while at that point
and not really getting too many jobs.
And then I got The Wire
and it completely changed my life, so…
It was a, um, incredible piece of work.
Really poignant.
I don't think we knew how poignant it was
and how it would change, um,
the fabric of television making
when we were making it.
But here it is. Today, considered a classic.
I feel very proud of it
and it really, completely launched my career.
After The Wire, we saw more of Idris on the big screen.
In 2007,
he fought off infected hoards in 28 Weeks Later…
rocked some incredible headgear
opposite Denzel in American Gangster…
and starred as small-time crook Mumbles
in Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla.
Now, now, that's not very nice, is it?
And proving his comedy chops,
he also appeared in the US Office
as the uptight pencil pusher
and general enemy of fun, Charles Miner.
-Are you OK? -No, I swallowed a crown.
Having already wowed us as a gangster in The Wire,
2010 saw Idris step onto the right side of the law
in one of his most iconic roles:
maverick detective John Luther.
Do you know, I worry you're on the devil's side
without even knowing it.
John Luther was a moment in my life
where I'd, sort of,
not plateaued, but I could see a glass ceiling
in the type of films I was making, and um…
I was living in America and, you know, my agent said,
"Would you fancy coming
back to the BBC to work on a detective show?"
And I was, like,
"Yes."
Read the script
and it was, like, what a character, right?
What
a complex, twisted guy
that was a good guy.
Even though I'd been in the States a long time,
I really felt so welcomed home,
to be asked by the BBC to head
a new TV show called Luther
that wasn't written for me specifically,
but they just thought I was a good enough actor
just to take it.
There was no auditions or anything,
and I was, like, "Yeah."
And that really was a pivotal moment also
because it was when…
a junction where I came back to the UK
and got back into the UK's zeitgeist, if you like.
The amazing news for Luther fans
is that Idris will return to the role
in a new Netflix film due to start shooting soon.
We cannot wait.
While he was clearing up London's streets in Luther,
Idris was also keeping the peace
on a more galactic scale.
In 2011, he joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe
as Heimdall in Thor.
Think of him as Asgard's bouncer.
If your name's not on the list,
you're not coming in.
I will honour my sworn oath
to protect this realm as its gatekeeper.
Yeah, I mean I've always been a fan of superheroes
and being in the MCU, and in the DCU as well,
you know, it feels like being a part
of a super team, to be quite honest.
I feel like… I think all of us as actors,
or, you know, me, Chris Hemsworth, um,
Paul Rudd, you know, we all look at each other and go,
"Wow, how lucky are we, that we get to play
these characters in these films?"
So yeah, I feel very… very happy about that.
Idris played Heimdall in five films
and is one of few MCU actors to also step
into the DC Universe,
where he blew us, and many bad guys, away
as Bloodsport in the smash action comedy Suicide Squad.
No one likes a show-off.
Unless what they're showing off is dope as fuck.
Fuck.
That's true.
When he wasn't guarding Asgard,
the 2010s saw Idris
flexing all kinds of skills,
from accordion playing in 2012's Prometheus,
to piloting a 250-foot mech
as the brilliantly named Stacker Pentecost
in 2013's Pacific Rim.
That year also saw him
nominated for Best Actor at the Golden Globes
for his performance as Nelson Mandela
in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
It is an ideal which I hope to live for
and achieve.
But,
if needs be,
it is an ideal for which I am prepared
to die.
Yes, sir.
We were defending ourselves.
In 2015, Idris appeared in his first Netflix original
as The Commandant,
the charismatic leader of a guerrilla army
in Beasts of No Nation.
This was followed by a year of beasts
of a very different kind.
In 2016, he voiced Shere Khan in The Jungle Book…
Run, Mowgli!
…sea lion Fluke in Finding Dory…
Come on, Gerald.
Give us your pail, we'll let you sit on the rock.
Yeah, Gerald.
…and a buffalo police chief in Zootopia.
That's almost a whole zoo of Idris Elba.
We need to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
Francine,
happy birthday.
The last five years were just as varied,
as Idris survived a terrifying plane crash
in The Mountain Between Us,
defended Jessica Chastain's illegal poker empire
in Molly's Game
and put his real-life love of DJing on screen
in the Netflix comedy Turn Up Charlie.
The man has moves.
And that's before he took on
Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson
in Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw.
Most actors wouldn't last two minutes
against one of them, let alone both.
In 2020, Idris starred
in the Netflix original Concrete Cowboy,
the story of a modern-day urban cowboy
living the Wild West dream
on the streets of Philadelphia.
Shit, we gonna do what we always do.
We gonna ride.
And if you thought he looked good in a cowboy hat there,
you're going to love The Harder They Fall,
a western that focusses
on real-life Black cowboy Nat Love,
and his hunt for the ruthless Rufus Buck.
Yeah, I'm a fan of westerns.
I like westerns.
You know, 3:10 to Yuma, Unforgiven,
these are really great examples, um…
And I never imagined that I'd be in one,
because they didn't really write
Black people into westerns
and I just couldn't imagine
what role I would have to play, you know.
And Jeymes Samuel's always had this amazing vision.
We're old friends and he said,
"I… I can see you in a western and I want to do it.
I can see you on a horse."
I'm like, "Yeah, great," because I hate horses.
No I don't hate horses, I love horses,
but I'm allergic to them.
And here we are.
You know, it's a really great story.
The story itself is a great story
and even if you don't like westerns,
you're gonna love the story.
I want you to vacate immediately
or die where you lay.
You can see for yourself,
as The Harder They Fall is streaming on Netflix now.