Idris Elba Quotes - Page 4

The English are good at bad guys - the James Bond-style villain, cunning, slow-burning. The Americans are much more obvious about it.

Yeah, I know, any time you hear an actor say, 'I do music', you cringe. But I want to be gradual with my music. I want to earn my stripes.

Some directors hand over portions of their movie to their head of department to the point where it's like, "I'm not going to talk to you about the costumes, but I'm going to let you talk to the expert." Rather than, "You want to talk stitching, let's talk stitching. You want to talk grade of leather? Let's."

The directors [who know every detail] make films that are complete, basically.

You’re directing a movie, but you are at the head of a ship of people, a whole fleet of people. And being able to manage that - being able to handle yourself as a director being a leader - that’s massively important.

Television is where I cut my teeth.

One of my first jobs was in a soap opera, five days a week. And what I found is, although there are different directors coming in and different crews, you just lived in your character. It's the nature of the story, the ongoing story, and it can get deeper and deeper.

Every leading lady I work with, I'll see if I can get a song out of them and put it on an album.

There's the argument that you can relate to someone who's completely unrelatable. In the way that a director shows you his imagination on a film, then I get to show you my imagination in a big dumb character.

The adrenaline feeling of jumping out of cliffs and bikes and all of that is very specific to the film. In 'Pac Rim' I'm not doing that so much. There isn't that touch stonework for me in it, but there is a lot of action.

I was in The Wire for three years, and I left at the highlight of that.

People watch three or four episodes at a time of their shows.

Television, for me, is a medium that I'm probably always going to be attached to, one way or another.

I still sing on bits and pieces. Singing's something that I love to do, but it's not something that I pursue as a career.

I get criticized for taking roles in films like Ghost Rider 2, but if you look at my résumé, dude, I've mixed it up as much as I can.

Being able to work with Ridley Scott on this film is like being able to play on the Olympic team for actors.

I don't get recognised that much yet in London, but when I do I get a real sense of achievement.

I was into Spider Man when I was a kid and that was the only comic I've ever read.

I did a rendition of Billie Jean which is on my Soundcloud. I put it on Twitter, and it got about 3000 hits that day.

I'll always be attached to telly in one way or another, whether it's a character or producer or director, I just love the medium.

[Sometimes] I sit in front of my [gaming] console with my headphones on and I play. I love that. It's a nice form of escapism.

White actors still get way more money in Hollywood. It's been that way for a very long time. I hope it'll change, but it's a matter of forcing that change.

I'm a little sheepish about it. Whenever I meet fans and they're like, 'Oh, you're so sexy,' I just don't get that. There's no way one man can be universally sexy.