Actor

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.

People expect me to be that guy. But I'm more east London boy than east Baltimore.

I've been DJing mostly, and most DJs end up producing. That's just me.

I wasn't bad at school, but I was never a bookworm.

I did green screen for the first time! I wouldn't like to do a whole movie of green screen, though. You kind of forget the plot a little - like being in a Broadway play and doing it over and over and forgetting your line halfway through.

The role of my agent has just been to get me in the room. If I can get in the room - say the character is just a charming man who lives next door - then I'll walk in there and be as charming as I can and they will think to themselves, 'I don't see why we can't cast him.'

I try to fit in workouts whenever I can.

There has been a big debate about it: can a black man play a Nordic character?

Africans, we hold on to our youths and whip them into shape.

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 have one of these bodies. When I was younger, I could never put weight on, and now that I'm a little older, there's a natural sort of chubbiness coming. But honestly, if I work out for a week, it drops off in no time.

I've always been DJing; it's just I'm making more of a push for it, making it more public.

As an actor, you're trained to do the right thing, be politically correct, say your lines, say the right thing about the people you're working with.

I want to go to Sierra Leone with something - whether it's some sort of contribution to healthcare, or to the entertainment industry. My cousin is a nurse; we are talking about opening a clinic.

The long and short of it is that I am now in a position in England to green light movies, and that's really excellent - not high-budget movies, but movies none the less.

There's a fast-track if you can do the networking. For some personalities it works, but for mine it doesn't.

I'm rebelling against being handed a career, like, 'You're the next this; you're the next that.' I'm not the next anything, I'm the first me. I can't be myself, I can't just be Idris Elba. But that's just the nature of the business.

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

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.

What really excites me in a project is when it goes in a way you haven't been before.