Idris Elba has a new interview with the Guardian. For true Idris-loonies, it’s a must-read. I’m afraid those of you with merely a passing fancy will find it boring. The piece is food-intensive, which I LOVE. Details about food make for a good celebrity profile, and this Guardian piece involves Idris ordering oysters, tipping out the excess water and tapping Tabasco sauce on the oyster, then presenting it to the Guardian journalist to eat. He even recommends how to eat it: “Don’t chew it. Just get it in, back of the throat, go down.” Jesus, I need to hear the recording of Idris Elba saying those words. Idris is promoting the album Murdah Loves John, an album he produced but does not sing/rap on. It’s inspired by his famous character Luther, and… I mean, whatever. His music career is the least interesting part of him. I wish he spent the interview talking about food. He does drink a Sex On The Beach at one point, so… I mean, add that to your memory bank. He also smokes! You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
He had caviar for the first time: “I had caviar the other day for the first time, on a baked potato. I would have just done with baked beans, buuuuut – caviar, mate, no problem. It tasted like tiny mushrooms to me.”
Oh God, he refers to himself in the third-person: “I wanted [the album] to be about the texture of the TV show. There’s not much room for Idris singing or rapping, that would be silly. I want to create a genre, to be the conduit that brings together character albums for life, free of that stigma. No one wants to hear an actor sing if he can’t sing.”
His own unpopular songs: “You must be thinking: ‘F–king hell, why are you doing that?’ I was on a film called Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance and I had a lot of downtime. Imagine me in a Hilton hotel: desk, laptop, little mic, me sitting there in me boxers… As an actor, all day long I’m reading someone else’s thoughts. What about my own thoughts? That comes out in various guises. Writing. Directing. And music, unfortunately.”
He loves UK grime music: “To me, grime is the purest form of hip-hop in the world at the moment because it comes from a place of: ‘We are who we are and we aspire to be this.’ I feel close to that. That’s where US hip-hop lost some of its way because now it’s like: ‘We’re all ballers and we all make stupid amounts of money.’”
Luther versus James Bond: “Murdah Loves John sounds comparable to a Bond tune, right? Bond’s great, but Luther? A new Luther tune every time? He might not be suave with, y’know, ‘Rah rah, rah, I’ll have a fancy car.’ He’ll drive a Volvo and still get there… I’m just saying that Murdah Loves John has the same sort of gravitas as any Bond song. That’s reinvention. Come on, man, this is art, man; we’ve all had a paintbrush, we all can’t paint the same landscape.” Forget being the next Bond, then, if someone came knocking and asked him to do the next Bond theme, would he do it? “Absolutely. I’m all for that.”
Idris is over the James Bond question. But he’s totally up for producing or writing some Bond music! As for his love of UK grime… I’ll admit that I’m not familiar with it. It sounds like grime is more issue-based and poverty-based rap, which… to be fair, there’s some of that in America, it just gets drowned out by all of the “Let’s splash champagne on the Lambo” rap.
Meanwhile, Idris is still getting tons of Oscar buzz for Beasts of No Nation. A few days ago, he was asked how he feels about said buzz, and his answer was surprisingly noncommittal: “If I’m honest, at the risk of sounding ‘Uhhh, he don’t really care,’ I actually don’t. We don’t start off making films at all with the idea we might get an award. It’s great that it might be celebrated, but it doesn’t actually define me or the film. It’s great that Oscars may be happening for us, but I haven’t really sort of planned for it. Maybe it comes, maybe it doesn’t.” That’s a really good answer. Idris doesn’t get enough credit for being a very diplomatic dude.
Last thing – if you want to see Trevor Noah fan-boy all over Idris, go here.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
“me sitting there in me boxers”
Thank you, Idris. I will carry that image with me through most of the day.
Mmmhmm, and me.
WORD.
Gross.
“We’re all ballers and we all make stupid amounts of money.”
This reminds me of my late mum, who put it more bluntly: “Rap? All that I hear just seems to be stupid men saying ‘guess which is bigger, my gun or my penis?” I used to suggest there was more to it than that section, but y’know. Mothers. Always right or you get told off.
I think she was definitely right on that one.
Idris is awesome!
I love Idris. I really do believe that he’s mostly a go with the flow kind of dude and believes if the Oscar happens, it does, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t-he’s fine either way.
Sigh. Thank you for a lovely dose of Idris this morning.
I watched him on jonathan Ross the other day. He’s sexy and likeable but for some reason he doesn’t seem very bright, which is kind of a turn off. It was weird watching him sat next too David Attenborough he kinda turned into a little boy. Chiwetel ejiofor is probably more my cup of tea because of well ..intelligence.
Is it wrong of me to want to be that black leather belt he’s wearing? I don’t think so.
Ah I do love the talk of Idris in the morning, what a nice way to start the day!!
I watched Beasts of No Nation last night….wow…it was a hard movie to watch, very hard….his character gives you chills and makes you want to walk out and take a shower to forget it…and yet you can’t stop remember it…chilling!! I see a Supporting Actor Oscar in his future.
I disagree with him about uk rap. It’s never been good imo. Oysters are awful too.
Then you havent listened to UK Grime. Grime isnt ‘rap’, its Grime. Its not aimed at the US market, you have no idea what it is like to grow up in poverty stricken council estates in Tottenham, therefore you arent the audience. But take a listen to Skepta, Novelist, Stormzy etc (if you can understand the accents) and appreciate a whole new genre of music. To say that all ‘UK rap’ (lol) isnt up to par with the US just perpetuates the stereotype that American’s cant be bothered to see past their own noses.
Imo means in my opinion. Uk rap isn’t good imo. I like french and spanish rap and every other kind of rap but uk rap. I don’t like it full stop. The council estates are called the projects in these parts ,I do have an idea what it’s like.
So you all there’s a different between Rap and Hip Hop…. know it
hip hop (inserts Kendrick Lamar, Jay Cole, Africa Bimbata, Tribe called Quest) is a culture and was rooted from the civil rights movement/black empowerment movement and drug wars of the late 60’s-80’s it pretty much inspired the UK Grime Rap….. but also from that you had Gansta rap which was rap that literally spawned from the drug wars and the oppression of the black and brown people during that time in the urban areas in the 80’s-90’s…. some would say Trap music is a evolution of the gansta rap….. it was about coming up from nothing, with an angle of selling drugs to survive/hustle and or (Trippy Rap — taking drugs to escape the harsh reality of life of poverty and racial injustice— inserts Travis Scott)
no today what you have is mindless cyborg rap—– i mean rapper dont even rap any more (inserts Young Thug, Lil Wayne, etc. etc) and although it may have a sick beat and bass (and I make still shake my tail-feather to it…. I would NEVER pay for it nor pay for a concert.
the problem is, is that most people dont know what’s going on and rush to judge and lump it all together and dont know the difference. (I mean that’s like if I said all country is lame and suicidal…. but that may just be certain artist or songs that only i’ve heard it’s not accurate of the whole genre of rap and culture of hip hop)