Idris Elba OBE – The Special Award

IDRIS ELBA – THE SPECIAL AWARD

Courtesy of The LEDE Company

Idris Elba OBE is a man of many parts, an indemand actor who somehow finds time to DJ, direct and run a successful production company. He’s also a good guy who gives a leg-up to new talent. He is, quite frankly, one of the UK’s greatest exports, internationally renowned and respected for his craft and a champion for both the next generation and an inclusive industry.

“I was shocked and deeply honoured to be honest, man. It’s been a very strange year and it’s such a nice moment to be recognised by my industry,” says Elba about learning he was to receive the Special Award, one of BAFTA’s highest honours.

For any actor, it’s been an odd year – and an unproductive one, with television and film production shutting down across the globe. But it briefly also threatened to become life-threatening for Elba when he tested positive for coronavirus in March. Fortunately his symptoms were mild and he has fully recovered. Now, a few months later, he says: “I do feel like I dodged a bullet – I’m very thankful to be alive.”

The star of HBO’s The Wire (2002-2004) and the BBC’s Luther (2010-) was set on becoming an actor from his early teens. “I went to a boys school and we did boy things, so drama was a breath of fresh air. I didn’t know if I was good at it but I really enjoyed it, and I was willing to learn and absorb it. I was like a sponge.”

Elba is proof positive that potential talent can come from any background, but opportunity can be barriered. Boys from Elba’s ordinary East London background – he is the son of a Ghanaian mother and Sierra Leonean father, who worked at Ford’s Dagenham plant – are frequently denied the chance to make it in the rarefied world of acting. Elba, however, received a £1,500 grant from the Prince’s Trust charity, which helped him study at the National Youth Music Theatre, after leaving his Canning Town secondary school.

“It was a godsend. Getting in to the theatre was hard enough, but then you needed money to afford travel and a contribution to your living. I couldn’t have done it without that money,” says Elba, who went on to play Chicago mobster Big Jule in a production of Guys and Dolls that went to Tokyo. “That experience was lifechanging for me in terms of my confidence.”

At the BAFTA Television Awards in 2016

Sarah M Lee/BAFTA

Like many newcomers to television, Elba’s first onscreen role was as a murderer in a crime reconstruction scene on BBC One’s Crimewatch in 1994. Elba wasn’t sniffy about the role: “I was thankful for the job. It sounds weird but, at the time, getting a job on Crimewatch was the first rung on the ladder. A lot of actors don’t like to admit they did Crimewatch, but I’m not embarrassed by it.”

His first full role – Spike in BBC children’s show The Boot Street Band – followed and Elba laughs at the memory: “I was one of the few adults on it, but I was playing a kid. If you ever work with young actors, it’s the shortest day in the world – start late, finish early, go home.”

Other parts soon followed in shows such as Absolutely Fabulous (1995) and, inevitably, The Bill (in two separate roles, 1994 and 1995). Elba recalls those days fondly: “I was a jobbing actor. I was discovering who I was and what I wanted to be as an actor.”

But he was ambitious for more: “At the time, the pinnacle [in the UK] was to get on Casualty, The Bill or Silent Witness. I’d done all of those and I thought to myself, ‘Maybe I do want to be bigger.’ I remember looking at actors across the pond and seeing how their careers looked, and I thought, ‘I could have a piece of that.’”

So, Elba moved to New York and thrived, guesting in such long-running cop shows as Law & Order (2001) and CSI: Miami (2003). He also starred as Achilles in Sir Peter Hall’s well-received off-Broadway production of Troilus and Cressida.

Work, though, tailed off and Elba was on the verge of quitting the States – “I was absolutely broke. It was time to pack up and come home” – when he landed the role of Stringer Bell in David Simon’s Baltimore-set crime saga The Wire, a series that is rarely absent from lists of television’s greatest ever shows. Elba’s performance as the drug kingpin and would-be businessman made him one of the HBO series’ most popular characters, and although Stringer was dramatically killed off during the show’s third season, his influence was felt throughout the rest of The Wire’s run. Notably, his accent was pitch perfect, many fans never realised he hailed from the UK, with even creator Simon failing to spot his East London accent during the audition process.

“I’d been living in America for a long time and I was really into the culture and the culture was in me, so the accent was a lot easier,” recalls Elba. “I remember coming back to do Luther and speaking in my own accent and that was a bit odd.”

The BBC One psychological crime drama, created by Neil Cross, has run for five seasons. “Luther was amazing and one of the biggest contributors to my career and my life,” says Elba, who played the troubled DCI John Luther.

DJ-ing at the Television Awards 2013

Johnny Birch/BAFTA

While the potential for more Luther has not been ruled out, Elba’s a busy man. As well as his television work, there are parallel, successful careers in film and music. Elba runs his own record label and has spun sounds as a DJ around the world, including at BAFTA Awards’ after parties. His feature film directorial debut, 2018’s Yardie, with its reggae soundtrack, allowed Elba to combine his love of story and music. “That was a dream job for me,” he notes. “It was small in scale but it was my whole world fused into one.”

Elba’s favourite film of his, though, remains 2013’s Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. “Getting to play Nelson Mandela – that brings a lump to my throat. It was an honour to portray him. I dedicated that role to my dad. He reminded me of Mandela, with his big white hair and infectious smile.”

The same year, Elba formed his own production company, Green Door Pictures, which has provided opportunities for new talent to break into the world of television. “I want to open the door for others to come in,” he says.

Green Door’s ambitions to help level the playing field for all those with talent mirrors one of BAFTA’s own aims. The company’s intent is emblazoned across its website: ‘Diversity. Opportunity. Inclusion.’ Past scripted and unscripted productions include several one-offs for a week-long #TheIdrisTakeover of BBC Three in 2017, showcasing new and emerging talent. Future plans include an option on Derek Owusu’s Teaching My Brother to Read, based on the forthcoming novel published by UK grime star Stormzy’s book imprint, #Merky Books.

With Madeline Appiah in season three of In the Long Run

Courtesy of Sky

The actor, who was appointed an OBE in 2016, has frequently spoken about the lack of opportunity in the British film and television industries and the need to tackle barriers to inclusion, most notably in a powerful speech to Westminster MPs in 2016. In that speech, Elba quoted Mandela, stating “anything difficult always seems impossible until it’s done.” Now, the actor says: “I am positive about the future. The needle has moved significantly.”

Green Door’s biggest hit so far, Sky One comedy In the Long Run (2019), is described by Elba as “a love letter to the 80s”. It’s a joyful labour of love, a world away from the violence of Stringer Bell and John Luther. “If this world was to fall off its axis, at least there’s a piece of material that shows what East London was like,” says Elba. “In the Long Run’s also massively important to me. My old man died seven years ago and I play my old man in it. It’s a salute to him and his life, and the life that set me up to being who I am today.”