![]() ![]() “I definitely used work to exorcise demons, there’s no doubt about that,” Elba says.Įven the current job in a splashy, cartoony, very violent summer blockbuster has had elements of therapy to it, Elba insists. Some years later, he signed on to play John Luther during a period when he was feeling disillusioned as an actor, trusting it would be helpful to inhabit a character who was also entering a troubled midlife. In his name-making portrayal of The Wire’s Stringer Bell, for instance, he approached the character not only as a bright, ambitious drug dealer (the way the writers had conceived Bell on the page), but also as a young man who, like Elba himself, felt as though his back was constantly pressed against a wall. “If you’re only dealing with certain facets of your own personality, is that really acting? People sometimes tell me, ‘You were good in this or that role’, and I think, ‘You don’t realise. A lot of times I read something in a script and I think, ‘I’m secretly dealing with that.’” Actually, Elba continues, he sometimes wonders if his approach amounts to a form of professional cheating. The roles I take tend to have that complexity, and I enjoy diving into them, because, yeah, this is therapy time. “No doubt about it,” Elba says the characters he likes best “tend to deal with emotional battles, a lot of suppression, a lot of dualities. I ask him which of his acting gigs have served as a de facto therapist’s couch. But creativity’s a real balancer for me.” He calls working in the arts “the best suspension system I have for keeping me even”, and says he sees creativity as a form of therapy. For doing this, that and the other, for doing too much. “People have criticised me for doing a lot of things. In The Long Run – the TV show based on his childhood growing up in London. Is he at risk of spreading himself too thin? ![]() Throughout much of this he has drip-released music online, launched those various businesses and side projects, and sold us Sky boxes in charming TV ads. Elba put in a decade as a police detective on the BBC ( Luther, 2010-19), and more recently produced and starred in a pair of family-friendly TV shows, one for Sky ( In The Long Run) and one for Netflix ( Turn Up Charlie), that were, to different degrees, autobiographical, the former nodding to his youth in 80s London and the latter to a life spent moonlighting as a part-time DJ. He got in profitably early on the superhero boom ( Thor, 2011) and over time has secured footholds in a handful of other Hollywood franchises, contributing bit parts to an excellent Alien instalment, a so-so Star Trek, a real stinker of a Fast & Furious. I just have a drive that, though I can’t explain exactly where it comes from, is always there.”Įver since he first broke through as one of the stars of HBO’s The Wire, back in the mid-00s, Elba has averaged about three movies a year. Turns out, it’s also quite labour-intensive, y’know? I can sit still. “I like figuring out how to apply my personality best,” he says. “Wearing hats,” is how Elba describes his commitment to switching between creative lanes, from acting to music to campaigning to whatever else. ![]() He tilts or bows his head while listening to questions, answering in that low, controlled, famously splendid voice that has been well harvested, over time, for use in animated movies and advert voiceovers. “I definitely enjoy fulfilling my creative ego,” Elba answers, after some thought. ![]()
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