Look who’s back:

Idris Elba talks about the fascination with murder as Luther returns to UKTV for season five.

Luther returns after a four-year break.

It has been four years but DCI John Luther is back and he’s pursuing his most evil villain yet.

“(Luther) is a dark, quite violent procedural but, in this season, we have upped the scale,” says Idris Elba, adding there is good reason for the break between seasons.

“It is one of those shows that wouldn’t work, in my opinion, doing it year in year out. It needs to be made into bite-sizes because it is very dark.”

British-born Elba, a successful DJ, producer and musician as well as award-winning actor, initially found fame in the United States, playing drug trafficker Stringer Bell on acclaimed series The Wire from 2002 to 2004.

Luther, which debuted in 2010, raised his profile even higher and he has won both a Golden Globe (2012) and a Screen Actors Guild award (2016) for his role as the renegade detective. He played the title role in the biographical film Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom (2013), is a regular in the Thor franchise and there have been suggestions he could play James Bond. However, John Luther remains a firm favourite with Elba.

“I love the show and I love playing the character. It’s a gift of a part. There are so many dimensions to play and I really enjoy that,” he says. Season five is no exception. It opens with Luther and his wet-behind-the-ears sidekick Detective Sergeant Catherine Halliday (Wunmi Mosaku) hunting a serial killer who has murdered three people.

Their investigations bring them into contact with a psychiatrist Dr Vivien Lake (Hermione Norris), London gangster George Cornelius (Game Of Thrones’ Patrick Malahide), and Luther’s nemesis Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson), who appears to be back from the dead again.

“(Alice) is the mastermind criminal who got away,” Elba says, of the woman with whom Luther has a long-running love-hate relationship.

“She has incredible violence in her, but she is still a compelling character to watch. Alice is also the character who causes Luther the most trouble. She is the one person not afraid of him. She can control him.

“She’s his kryptonite, his weak spot. Of course, she shows up in this series and she’s not there to give Luther Christmas cards.”

Elba is keeping further details under wraps, but he is more than happy to reveal what he has learnt from his time playing the politically incorrect detective who has become the envy of police officers worldwide.

“They love him because he doesn’t get into the politics of the job. He gets into finding bad guys in the most visceral way. The show wouldn’t be so appealing if it tried to deliver trendy messaging. It’s pure escapism,” the actor says.

“He’s not corrupt in the normal sense, but his philosophy is ‘by any means necessary’. If he has to take down someone who has committed a crime, he is happy to take the law into his own hands.

“In this day and age, that sort of vigilante is rare. If you do that, you can be labelled a terrorist. It’s a very fine line.

“But if you watch someone like Luther, who says he doesn’t care how he gets results, that’s pretty compelling.”

Elba says he believes real-life detectives learn a lot from the villains they hunt.

“When you choose a career pursuing people who do incredible evil, you have to be able to think like them and understand their psyches. That’s going to take a toll,” he says.

“It’s like people who are fascinated with murder podcasts. If they were ever to murder someone, they would be way better at it than someone who had never heard a murder podcast before. “Luther is similar. He has a dark side. Of course, he is not a murderer, but if he were to be one, he’d be good at it.”

However, while Luther might be one of television’s most lauded detectives, Elba says his own tendency to see the good – rather than the bad – in people would end up getting in the way of his own detective skills.

“If someone does something bad, I try to look at why. I don’t believe in pure evil,” he explains.

“As a detective, I think you have to have a suspicious nature and I don’t have that.

“Part of the job as an actor is asking, ‘What’s the back story? Why did he say that?’ I would take that into being a detective.”

“He has a dark side. Of course, he is not a murderer, but if he were to be one, he’d be good at it.”

– Idris Elba on his character DCI John Luther