7 Things We Learnt When We Interviewed Idris Elba

Film star, DJ, charity advocate, businessman, dad - and back on big screens. Idris Elba? He the MAN. Here's what we took away from our interview with him...

1. He's one serious multi-tasker.

‘We only use 12 percent of our brains, and I want to use more,’ he says. ‘My challenge is to be creative and keep pushing the envelope. I don’t see why I can’t do anything. Someone might say, you can act but you can’t be a painter, or a musician, or a poet. But it all comes from the same source.’

2. Music is where his heart is. Have you heard Mi Mandela?

‘As long as I’ve been loving music, I’ve dreamed of having a whole album to say stuff. Now people can listen to it and get a piece of my soul. Somehow I can hide behind the film or the character, but when it comes to music I have to be really honest.’

3. He does his own stunts.

‘A lot of them. There aren’t many stunt guys who look like me.’ Take Bastille Day, ‘a neo-political action flick with fight sequences and car sequences’ coming next year.

4. Luther will be back for a fourth season. They’re filming right now. Stunts an’ all. Probably.

‘Luther is one of those men who go in and save the day,’ he says. ‘I’m half way between I think, a gentleman… but I wouldn’t say I’m overly macho. I’ve been described in many ways, let’s put it that way.’

5. There are no plans to be the next James Bond.

‘I haven’t a clue about that!’

6. How does he handle hoards of screaming women?

‘It’s like walking into a pub with a bright red suit on. You love your suit but you know you are just being stared at. That’s how I feel about it…’ he explains. ‘I love what I do. People give me a lot of love and come up to me in the street, but you have to get used to that. I’ll walk into a pub and I forget that I have a public image.’

7. His idea of paradise is…

‘Sitting in a farmhouse that I visit sometimes in France, in the middle of nowhere, and there’s a little studio there, and the phone doesn’t work so you can’t get hold of anyone, but you have internet, and it’s just that; music in the middle of that.’