I know Idris Elba has a messy personal life. I know he talks about himself in the third person, like Kellan Lutz. I know he shamelessly name-drops Pres. Obama and hustles the guts out of everything he’s given. But throughout it all… I really like Idris. He IS a mess. He’s sort of openly vulnerable and cheeseball and he does whatever he wants, despite the fact that no one really wants to hear him record another album. And I really hope he gets nominated for an Oscar for Long Walk to Freedom. I really, really want it for him. Not that I think he would win – personally, I want Chiwetel Ejiofor to win – but I want Idris to join the big leagues with a Best Actor Oscar nomination. I think it would be vindication for him and his struggles.

Anyway, Idris is featured in the January Vogue – the one with Cate Blanchett on the cover. The long interview is all about his career thus far, with a heavy emphasis on the Mandela role. You can read the full piece here – I enjoyed it, but he isn’t saying anything new.

On Obama: “He’s a nice guy,” he tells me. (They’ve met once before, at a state dinner where Elba was a guest of Britain’s prime minister.) “I go to shake his hand, and he’s like, ‘Come on, man! Give me a dap.’ ”

On Mandela: “I’ve been told I have presence. I’ve been told I’m charismatic. But I’m not Nelson Mandela,” he jokes. “Everybody has a sense of who Mandela is—his nobleness, his white hair, his voice. Those were big shoes to fill. I felt like that would be the challenge: to create Mr. Mandela’s presence on film for people who have never met him.”

He’s recording an album about his experiences shooting Long Walk to Freedom: He’s just finished cutting the first two tracks of his first full-length album, called Mi Mandela. “Each song is about some sort of feeling, some sort of transitional moment, while I was playing him,” he says. “I took some musicians down to South Africa, and I created this soundscape.”

Idris noticed the little things about Mandela: “I didn’t want to do an impression,” he explains. He read extensively in Mandela’s diaries. “You can tell quite a bit about someone by the way they write,” he says. “He’s a quite methodical man. He was very tidy. Extremely tidy. This”—he gestures toward the ripped bag and scattered popcorn before him—“would be too messy for him. This”—a couple of £10 notes tossed nearby—“would have been put away, neatly folded in his pocket. This hat”—a bright-red cap that he brought to guard against the autumn chill—“would be in his pocket.” Elba casts up his hands. “I’m not like that. I land here. And I use my environment however I wish.”

Going weeks without seeing his 12-year-old daughter: “You sacrifice that time—not just my daughter but my family,” he says. “I’m away from that structure so much that it’s actually a very lonely life sometimes.”

Playing Mandela as his father: At one point, portraying the old Madiba, Elba used a hand gesture—a middle-finger point—that his father, who died in September, constantly made. “My dad was very charismatic and always smiling. Everyone liked to talk to him,” Elba tells me after we leave the pub and begin driving through London. It is early evening, and the sidewalks flanking the road have begun to bustle with commuters. “Without seeing Mandela in real life—just watching a lot of footage—he reminded me of my dad.”

[From Vogue]

Just from a technical standpoint, I have no problem believing that Idris is entirely convincing as Mandela. I really do believe Idris did the extensive research and tried to reach down into Mandela’s soul. And let me say this – I think if we were talking about a historical figure who was white, and a talented-but-often-overlooked white actor who gave a surprisingly effective portrait of that man, the critical reaction would be different. But it’s not too late for Idris to get an Oscar nomination. Fingers crossed!

Photos courtesy VOGUE/Anton Corbijn (cover by Craig McDean).