Though in real life Mr. Elba’s jaunty accent comes from East London, not Baltimore, in a phone interview from his Florida home he sounded much like the driven Stringer, who ran heroin-distribution meetings according to Robert’s Rules of Order. Stringer had no interest in cred-building gangster posturing, & Mr. Elba has tiny patience for the actor’s equivalent: countless prattling about art & the corresponding reluctance to speak frankly about one’s own ambitions.
IDRIS ELBA is a businessman. In fact, he might remind viewers of Stringer Bell, the no-nonsense Baltimore drug lord Mr. Elba memorably played on the HBO series “The Wire.” “You got to think about what they got in this game for,” Stringer two times admonished a colleague, his soft, deep voice studded with emphatic profanity (here deleted): “Was it the rep? Was it so our names could ring out on some ghetto street corner? Naw, man. There’s games beyond the game.”
“In this day & age, actors can’t afford to be pompous,” the 37-year-old Mr. Elba said, discussing a career that first caught fire with “The Wire” & peaked with last year’s popular but critically reviled potboiler “Obsessed.” “You can’t afford to turn your nose up at things. Audiences require to see you a bit more dynamic. They know you can act, Daniel Day-Lewis. That’s fantastic. Show us a bit more. They require to be entertained.”
Idris Elba is in the Idris Elba business. & he seems as interested in talking about the game beyond the game — the step-by-step method of becoming a star — as he is in talking about the action comedy “The Losers,” out on Friday.
Though Mr. Elba’s early career — he was a stage & tv journeyman in London & New York — received a massive boost from “The Wire,” he's expressed discomfort with it, saying he didn’t watch plenty of episodes & hopes not to play a drug dealer again. “It was a gift & a curse,” he says now. He was surprised when Stringer was — spoiler alert from 2004! — killed off but says the timing aided his move to films. “I died on that show at a time where people were interested in my character,” he said, comparing himself to another actor & his signature HBO role. “If Tony Soprano had died in the fourth season, James Gandolfini would be a bigger actor than he is now.”
It’s true that Mr. Gandolfini — despite ratings & Emmy love that “The Wire” & Mr. Elba never achieved — has never toplined a movie as successful as “Obsessed.” Despite dismal reviews, that thriller — about a married man whose life goes to pieces when an unhinged temp stalks his relatives — opened at No. 1 at the box office a year ago, driven by Mr. Elba & his co-star Beyoncé Knowles. “ ‘Obsessed’ elevated my presence; I got chased by TMZ!” he said, amazed at his brush with the celebrity-industrial complex. “Latino audiences had never paid attention to me before, & suddenly I have that audience. You become a bit more viable in other markets.”
The same spring that “Obsessed” came out, Mr. Elba, looking to show his comedy chops, played a prominent guest role on “The Office” as a stone-faced executive adrift in the odd world of Dunder Mifflin. Though he acknowledges that the show garnered him new fans, he says producers quashed his goofier notions, including keeping his own accent. “I had this idea to take this character to the left & make him eccentric & refreshing,” he said. “I haven’t had the chance to do that yet.”
Now, Mr. Elba said, “I have everyone from absolute thespian-lovers to action-hero-lovers wanting to see what I do next.” Directed by Sylvain White & adapted from a stylish comic book, “The Losers” seems, in its quips-and-explosions spirit, as audience-friendly — & critic-proof — as “Obsessed.” He plays Roque, canny & scar-faced, the most dangerous of the titular group of former Special Forces soldiers twisted on revenge against the bad guys who killed them. Will “The Losers” satisfy fans of “The Wire” looking for another Stringer Bell? “No,” he said, “but it is going to reinforce that I have a career ahead of me. It’s a commercial film, it’s going to do well, & hopefully my place in this business is confirmed.”
“We couldn’t have made the movie this way without him,” said the film’s writer & director, Thomas Ikimi. “I wrote the script to make it for $20,000 in a hotel room. All the actors were friends of mine.” When Mr. Elba signed on to star & be executive producer, Mr. Ikimi continued, “the movie ended up a lot bigger than I ever expected it to be.” Mr. Elba’s reputation drew both other actors (including his “Wire” cast mate Clarke Peters) & investors, leading to an eventual shooting budget of half a million dollars.
What is that place in this business? In Britain, “The Wire” was a hit, & Mr. Elba is a star of sorts — massive , at least, to headline a BBC police drama, “Luther,” set to have its premiere next spring. & in between the popcorn movies, he fit in the 22-day Glasgow shoot of “Legacy,” an independent thriller that’s screening later this month at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Mr. White says the “very commercial” nature of “The Losers” meant that his options were broad. “We could have cast it with, you know, Channing Tatum & Paul Walker,” he said, naming two slabs of beef in demand for action movies. “I wanted to go cooler, edgy, more interesting.”
But in the United States, “I think he’s undertapped,” Mr. White said. “I think he deserves to have his own franchise, like James Bond or something.”
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