In this video, Idris Elba sits down with Entertainment Weekly to discuss the biggest film roles of his career on this episode of Role Call. With starring roles in blockbusters like ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ and ‘Thor’ to dramatic turns in ‘Beasts of No Nation’ and ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,’ this popular British actor has been a mainstay at the cinema for well over a decade.
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00:00All right
00:02Who is this Idris guy? He's been about hey, what's up?
00:05My name is Idris Elba and these are the biggest roles of my career. This is roll call
00:19All right cool here goes I'm just gonna pull out one of these DVDs whoa
00:24Dun dun dun
00:27This is the wire nah, man. We done worrying about territory man. What corner? We got what project
00:34Game ain't about that no more. It's about product stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale. These are all
00:40Fictional characters, but they were based on real people and so there was a real sort of sense of being attached to
00:46The myth of these real characters. There's a lot of actors from New York from DC from Baltimore that are real people
00:52We were in real neighborhoods with real people
00:56People would come past the cameras and then end up in the film because they were there on the day
01:02So that sort of you know fusion between acting and reality was kind of slim a lot of the times
01:08All right
01:11Mm-hmm Mandela
01:13Long walk to freedom. I have cherished the ideal of a free
01:17democratic society where all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities
01:25Long walk to freedom was the real
01:27Life-changing role for me. I went to
01:31Stay a night in
01:33Robyn Island and they put me in a cell and I said now I want you guys to just leave me here for the whole night
01:39Shut the door
01:41There's one night. It was terrifying obviously, but it was just like wow
01:45Wow, my guy was here for like 20 years still came out as a champion
01:53Put that down gently. Here we go. This is a lot of fun guys. Oh, wow
01:58You don't went in yeah talk about extremes. Okay. This is called beast of no nation nation nation
02:04Young men
02:06Well
02:07We will not wait to inherit any well
02:10Huh? We will not wait for them to come and give it to us. We are going to take it
02:18Yes, sir
02:19We're going to take it from them. Yes
02:22Essentially this was a fictional West African country. I sort of went for a
02:27West African general, but it was definitely influenced by where my parents are from my dad
02:32I'm Sierra Leone the commandant is a
02:35very twisted
02:38Conflicted human being he would sort of have this commands that he would use to sort of almost hypnotize those young soldiers
02:46The story is a loosely based around civil war of Sierra Leone and Liberia
02:51And I'm one of these actors that really sort of absorb my character absorb their experiences
02:56So I can understand a little bit I had to watch hours and read of stuff that was just so disturbing my
03:04Nightmares were varied. You know, it's like it was even me in these nightmares or it was commandant
03:11Or there's all this vivid imagery that I was exposed to
03:14When you go to a dark place like that for a project, what do you have to do to claw yourself out of it afterwards?
03:20Uh, can I be honest? At the time I was smoking a lot of weed and that would get me out of that
03:29Cheese
03:32The Suicide Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad
03:35To get me to lead your mission, you're gonna send my 14 year old daughter to prison?
03:39No
03:41Your daughter is 16 Dubois
03:44Your real father of the year
03:46James Gunn is a genius
03:48I never forget that the first day when he brought us all in and he was like, okay guys, I'm gonna show you the movie
03:55What? No, we're gonna read the movie, but I'm gonna show you what I'm thinking as we're doing it. Oh, okay, great
03:59He hand draws all of his scenes. He does all these really intricate drawings
04:05I mean, no disrespect James, but they're not great art, but they tell you what the shot is gonna be
04:10So we would be like reading reading reading and he'd be like okay cut stop stop stop watch the screen
04:15And then we'd be watching this sort of like
04:18Hodgepodge of drawings and some some visuals from another movie and he'd cut it together in a way that you were like wow
04:26Yeah, that's what's gonna look like. That's great. And then we're back to reading
04:32Can you guess what this is knuckles
04:35We didn't have a real sort of sense of what he sounds like so we decided to play with a few different voices
04:52Do you want to hear do you want to hear my first attempt at knuckles
04:56So you can see what happened there where we said no no to that one
05:06We got rid of him and then we ended up somewhere here
05:10But that also sounded a bit like Heimdall
05:12So we clawed back on that a little bit and then we made knuckles knuckles
05:15I did play the sega sonic games on I think you guys called the sega genesis
05:21We called a sega mega drive with the car trick
05:24My son is a fan of knuckles and sonic but of course more knuckles
05:29All right, here we go
05:36Hobbs and Shaw
05:37It's a lot of fun. It's great. I mean, I love making action films and I love doing fighting stuff
05:41You know these two big
05:43Action stars and little old Brixton
05:46What's the problem boys? Does it hurt?
05:49Must be hard being so
05:52Human
05:55Believe it or not, I made a song for the album
05:57With none other than cypress hill what I hear you say yes
06:02It was in la actually and we spent like two days in the studio
06:07They heard the song we came in we wrote it together. We recorded it. It was a lot of fun, man
06:11Big up cypress hill. We need to bring brixton law back
06:17All right, here's the next project ladies and gentlemen
06:20Thor and I played a little guy here called heimdall
06:24Heimdall may we pass
06:27As an enemy slipped my watch until this day
06:34I wish to know how that happened
06:35These
06:37Are not my real color eyes. I think in the beginning there was this very different approach to the marvel landscape to being as guardian
06:46And by the end there's a very different tone to the approach
06:50And I think the fan base tripled in size by the last movie I did
06:59Getting more and more complicated
07:00Okay
07:01Luther the fallen son
07:03It's like looking at an old mate, you know
07:06I've been playing and wearing that coat for a long time
07:09He's got something under his coat
07:14It's not right is it when I first did john luther
07:17I had lived in america for a long time and and I moved back to england and this is the first role
07:24I did my dad was getting really ill and I had so much sort of fear
07:30About losing my dad and pain and it all sort of manifested in
07:34In this performance in this guy. I was here to make an arrest
07:41Sugar mum was armed
07:43All right, you thought my life was an imminent danger when you took appropriate action
07:47All righty
07:49Oh
07:50Ladies and gentlemen the office
07:51You know, I just want to address everyone first
07:54Oh, yeah, take your time stanley pay attention. Hi everyone. Hi
07:59Hi
08:00Uh, look it's no secret. Hi
08:03They were always trying to make me laugh. It was all the time
08:06Especially john krasinski. What is a two-way petting zoo?
08:12You pet the animals they pet you back trying to keep a straight face while i'm doing my lines
08:17Someone else would make another sound over here. I mean it was it was a lot of work. I am a fan of cringe comedy
08:23I like dad jokes. I like dad jokes because they make people go
08:27cringe you know what I mean
08:30That's my sense of humor. Did michael just let anybody in his office?
08:35Yes
08:40I am aware of the effect I have on women all right the office
08:44All right
08:47Who is this idris guy? He's been about
08:50The dark tower
08:51Oh, no
08:53Faris, can you fix it? We have spare parts in the village
09:00Jacob
09:01Go find somewhere close to hide. I do not know if there are plans for more dark tower movies. There should be though
09:07It's an incredible series. It's debatable whether they'll have me back, but I loved playing my guy
09:14You know you have starters you have mains you have dessert you know you have a menu and I think the menu is important
09:22I do think that there's more agility and more opportunity and smaller stories, but
09:28There's nothing like being in front of a huge spectacle of a movie. So for me. It's a healthy menu