Idrissa Akuna “Idris” Elba, OBE (born 6 September 6, 1972) is an English actor, musician, and DJ. He is known for playing druglord Russell “Stringer” Bell on the HBO series The Wire, Detective John Luther on the BBC One series Luther, and Nelson Mandela in the biographical film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013). He has been nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film , winning one, and was nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Elba has appeared in films such as Ridley Scott’s American Gangster (2007), Takers (2010), Thor (2011), Prometheus (2012), Pacific Rim (2013), Thor: The Dark World (2013) and Beasts of No Nation (2015, for which he received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor), and Star Trek Beyond (2016).
In 2016, he also voiced Chief Bogo in Zootopia, Shere Khan in The Jungle Book, and Fluke in Finding Dory. He will make his directorial debut in late 2016 with an adaptation of 1992 novel Yardie by Victor Headley.
In addition to his acting work, Elba is a DJ under the moniker DJ Big Driis (or Big Driis the Londoner) and hip hop soul musician. In 2016, he was named in the Time 100 list of the Most Influential People in the World.
An only child, Idrissa Akuna Elba was born on 6 September 1972 in Hackney. His father, Winston, was a Sierra Leonean and worked in the Ford motor factory at Dagenham, while his mother, Eve, was a Ghanaian. Elba’s parents were married in Sierra Leone and later moved to London. Elba himself was brought up in Hackney and East Ham, and shortened his first name from Idrissa to Idris at school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting. He credits The Stage with giving him his first big break; having seen an advertisement for a play in the newspaper, Elba auditioned and met his first agent while performing in the role. In 1986, he began helping an uncle with his wedding DJ business; within a year, he had started his own DJ company with some of his friends.
Elba left school in 1988 and won a place in the National Youth Music Theatre, thanks to a £1,500 Prince’s Trust grant.
His first roles were in Crimewatch murder reconstructions. To support himself between roles in Crimewatch reconstructions, he worked in jobs such as tyre-fitting, cold call advertising sales, and the night shift at Ford Dagenham.
He was working in nightclubs, under the DJ nickname Big Driis, at age 19, but began auditioning for television roles in his early twenties.
- An Uzomedia Biography
Vía Uzomedia http://ift.tt/2jKnf2m
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