Idris Elba Quotes

Waking up in TRUTH is so much better than living in a lie.

What an honor it was to step into the shoes of Nelson Mandela and portray a man who defied odds, broke down barriers, and championed human rights before the eyes of the world.

I want to go to Sierra Leone with something - whether it's some sort of contribution to healthcare, or to the entertainment industry. My cousin is a nurse; we are talking about opening a clinic.

I'm never shaken or stirred.

My Father always told me that a fool at 40 is a fool for life.

I was always a real athletic kid. Then when I got older, I just figured it was part of life to keep training.

The less I talk about being black, the better.

I've been DJing mostly, and most DJs end up producing. That's just me.

I knew that if I wanted to be all I could be, I would have to go to the US. It took three years to get the accent right.

I'm tactile, very tactile. A woman who has really nice, looked-after skin is such a turn-on for me. It's always sexy.

I've got two smoking guns that just look incredible, and I love to pull them out whenever I can.

The only thing I change mainly is my sneakers. I love sneakers. But everything's sort of black or jeans. Jeans, always.

I love working. I'm a workaholic and I'm really privileged for some of the jobs I get offered and so I just want to keep going.

In 'Pacific Rim' I had to have a haircut I wouldn't usually rock. However, the moustache I had in the film - that might have to come out again. It was a good moustache. Good times.

[Sometimes] I sit in front of my [gaming] console with my headphones on and I play. I love that. It's a nice form of escapism.

The audience loves it when you pay attention to details.

I love to play different roles. That's just the kind of actor I am.

I love bikes. I used to own one, but I fell off it when I was younger and that was the end of my bike riding days until now.

What really excites me in a project is when it goes in a way you haven't been before.

The English are good at bad guys - the James Bond-style villain, cunning, slow-burning. The Americans are much more obvious about it.

It was deeply important for me to understand where Mandela came from. Because we know where he was going, and that's a famous story, but who was he? Where did he come from? What was his upbringing?

I still sing on bits and pieces. Singing's something that I love to do, but it's not something that I pursue as a career.

It's really funny because the same people who loved me as Stringer Bell were the same people that were watching Daddy's Little Girls literally in tears.

If I was gonna go to jail, I don't want to go to jail for stealing a bottle of water. I'll steal that $20 million. At least then it was worth it.

When you come from an under-privileged background, oftentimes, you feel a little overwhelmed by your education or your lack of.

As an actor, you're trained to do the right thing, be politically correct, say your lines, say the right thing about the people you're working with...

Working at BBC, at the head of one of the top dramas, is a tradition for great actors.

Africans, we hold on to our youths and whip them into shape.

It's actually quite criminal how 'The Wire' was systematically ignored.

I've never had to explain Prometheus to people, ever. Most people get it.

In some countries, no one knows who Idris Elba is.

Sean Connery wasn't the Scottish James Bond, and Daniel Craig wasn't the blue-eyed James Bond. So if I played him, I don't want to be called the black James Bond.

There's a fast-track if you can do the networking. For some personalities it works, but for mine it doesn't.

I get criticized for taking roles in films like Ghost Rider 2, but if you look at my résumé, dude, I've mixed it up as much as I can.

It could be Grammy night, Oscar night, whatever - I don't feel the pressure to be there.

Are there differences between black actors’ opportunities and white actors’ opportunities? Yes, there are. It’s been said.

Nobody likes a celebrity DJ for the sake of style, so I don't do that - I try to be good at what I do. It's all about resetting, it's my escape. It is work, it's a job, but I just love doing it.

Because I was big, I didn't have to listen to anyone doubting me. I was just considered good at football or whatever, there were no questions about it.

White actors still get way more money in Hollywood. It's been that way for a very long time. I hope it'll change, but it's a matter of forcing that change.

I did a rendition of Billie Jean which is on my Soundcloud. I put it on Twitter, and it got about 3000 hits that day.

I've always been DJing; it's just I'm making more of a push for it, making it more public.

Every leading lady I work with, I'll see if I can get a song out of them and put it on an album.

Television, for me, is a medium that I'm probably always going to be attached to, one way or another.

Being able to work with Ridley Scott on this film is like being able to play on the Olympic team for actors.

I was into Spider Man when I was a kid and that was the only comic I've ever read.

I tend to stay away from the comics.

What I like about their films is that you actually feel the momentum of whatever they're shooting. So, if someone's falling out a window, it gives the opportunity to show what that might feel like.

Actors tend to not know how their performances are going to actually be used. Even though the script says one thing, in the edit, it can be something else.

I'll always be attached to telly in one way or another, whether it's a character or producer or director, I just love the medium.

I would never be fearful of any character.