Idris Elba is doing a fine job of diversifying his entertainment portfolio. He’s an A-List actor with global appeal who can pull fans to the theaters to see his films or have them tuned in every week to watch his shows. He’s an international DJ who flies all around the world including taking a gig spinning on the ones and two for Megan Markle and Prince Harry’s wedding. He’s even had a long-running rap career, with his latest feature being on the single “Boasty” with Wiley, Stefflon Don, and Sean Paul. The actor tells The Hollywood Reporter that he likes to keep people on their toes while also having a career where he has plenty of options to choose from.
“My career is more like a buffet, and I like it that way,” Elba said. “It’s what keeps me alive and interested…I want to be Donald Glover. He’s the man. He literally does it all.” For many, Elba came close to almost doing it all when rumors began circulating that he was in the running to portray the next James Bond. However, Elba admitted that while he poked the bear when it came to fueling the rumors, he was never asked to play the role, nor was he considered. Even if he was, he said, it wasn’t a career choice he was necessarily seeking out.
“It’s not about the money,” he says. “It’s that I watched my dad die [in 2013]. And he and I had big plans. There was this sense of, ‘You’re going to go to America and make it, son,’ and I did and I wanted to come back and share it with him. But by that time, he wasn’t well, so I never got the chance to show him the fruits of my labor. We’d talked about all the things he could have if I made it, but then he got sick.”
“It was heartbreaking, but it also grounded the f**k out of me. So, when someone tells me, ‘You’re doing a bit too much.’ I’m like, ‘I’m going to die one day. I’m going to take that last breath, and you know what I don’t want to be thinking when I do? I should’ve done that.'”
