Dad’s words drove Idris to fame
Superstar actor Idris Elba has revealed how coded advice from his dad helped him reach the top and amass a £15million fortune.
The 47-year- old Brit said his dad Winston encouraged him to focus totally on acting if he wanted to be a success.
But his way of doing it was to tell a young Idris that acting would not pay.
London- born Idris, whose father came from Sierra Leone to work at the Ford plant in
Dagenham, Essex, said: “The mum is the disciplinarian in our family.
“But my dad’s word was it. My dad used to say, ‘Actors don’t make money’. I was like, ‘OK’.
“I knew what he meant – ‘Don’t go in there to make money, just do it because you want to do it’.
“I was 18 or 19 and he worked at Ford. He knew I wanted to work there to get money, buy records. He said, ‘ You want to give up the job I got you to be an actor? Actors don’t make money’. He said, ‘ If you are doing that, don’t half a*** that’.”
Golden Globe winner Idris shot to fame in American TV series The Wire in 2002 and is one of the UK’s most successful screen actors. He was TV cop John Luther, Nelson Mandela on the silver screen and is set to appear in Netflix film Concrete Cowboy.
But Idris said life was tough before he got his big break. At the time, he was married to Hanne
Norgaard and living in London. He told streaming site Fane they moved to New York and it was tough. He added: “It was a s*** time for around three to four years and my wife was pregnant at the time.
“I had to take my foot off this gas, I was ruining my life and my wife’s. We went through some hardships, that is when I got my life-breaking role in The Wire. It was the day after my daughter was born and you can’t write that.”