Guerrilla
Season 1 1Magic (*103) 21:30 Drama
Idris Elba is best known to TV fans as Detective John Luther in gritty crime thriller Luther (2010-current), but he’s on the other side of the law in limited series Guerrilla (2017), which he executive produces. “I was born in that era, in ’72. It was very different from the world we live in,” says the 45-year-old Londoner, whose character Kent is torn between love, the law and the Black Panthers civil rights movement.
Like his character, Idris knows all 1
about making choices: he’s a DJ, musician, actor, producer, director and fashion designer. “I’d say making music is my favourite because it is an expression of me as me,” he explains.
And he’s actually been into music 2
longer than acting. Idris’s uncle hired him as a 12-yar-old to DJ for his wedding company, while he only got into acting three years later after he auditioned for a local theatre play.
Like with DJing, Idris never got 3
formal acting lessons and claims that his rough-around-the-edges style “is probably what makes me popular for gritty, dark roles like Luther”.
His love for reality TV has seen him 4
push barriers “I didn’t think I’d get past,” admits Idris. In his 2015 doccie King Of Speed, he broke the Flying Mile Pendine Sands speed record in a “blindingly fast Bentley car”. Then in 2017, he spent a year training to be a kickboxer for his doccie Idris Elba: Fighter. He won his first and only pro fight on the show.
The actor’s name seems easy to 5
pronounce, but it’s often said incorrectly. It’s not “Id-ris”, but “Ee-dris”.
And while he refuses to talk about 6
possibly playing James Bond when current star Daniel Craig retires, it was Daniel who suggested Idris take over.