Idris Elba Plans to Focus on a Music Career, but He's Not Leaving Acting Behind

The actor opens up about his new film 100 Streets, shot and set in his native London.

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We've seen Idris Elba in a lot of different roles, from Krall in Star Trek Beyond to Stringer Bell on The Wire to the titular character on Luther. He's the sort of actor who tends to play risky characters, even when that means voicing an animated sea lion in Finding Dory. His most recent film, however, is a much more grounded endeavor.

In 100 Streets, which follows four connected stories around London, Elba plays a former sports star named Max who is having a hard time to dealing with his fading fame and his family issues. The film, out January 13, is a quiet, intimate piece that Elba also produced (and in which he reveals his bare butt). The actor, who also has The Dark Tower and Thor: Ragnarok on the horizon, spoke with about playing a more realistic character, his love for indie films, and why you might not be seeing him on the big screen much after this year.

The London native was excited to return to his hometown for the film, which is central to the movie's story.

It's a story about real people and it's about London. London is a big character in it. I was really intrigued by the concept of having four stories intertwining in the backdrop of London, which has my heart. I often play extreme characters doing extreme things, but these people are pretty normal. My character is someone who's dealing with being in the public eye, but he's still an ordinary character and an ordinary person.

I love filming in London. It's especially good to be filming at home. My films shoot everywhere, but it was good to be in my backyard.

I walk about a lot. I might get recognized here and there, but I just walk about. It feels so much like that character—I could be walking in the street and meet someone I haven't seen for years. It's like a big village in London. This film really looks at that and the tradition of that.

Samuel Goldwyn Films

He chooses drastically different roles for himself to take on—all men who offer something different from his own personality.

Sometimes it's therapy, letting out stuff in my head. Sometimes it's believability. Sometimes it's just to do a character that I've never done before. I try to be really varied when I pick roles and I like to try and do characters that aren't necessarily like me. Although, in this film, Max is someone who was a big sports star and he ends up going down the wrong path. There are certain similarities in my life in terms of being in the public eye. But I tend to try and play roles that aren't anything like me.

I try to play roles that aren't anything like me.

He wasn't weary of tackling his character, but getting him right was essential.

Not really, no. I just wanted to try and make him as believable as possible. That always makes me nervous no matter what the role. If I'm nervous about something or I'm not quite getting the beats, I talk to another actor or the writer or the producers and share the burden a little bit. Because no man or no one performance makes a film. It's about the whole thing.

Serving as a producer on the film took him out of his comfort zone.

I didn't particularly gain anything new, but it was a great experience to get to shoot in London. It was great to be part of a film that had very little budget and see it come alive. That was a good feeling. I was a producer on the film and helping make it come alive from nothing was definitely a new experience for me. Usually I'm an actor for hire, but in this case I made it come up more.

Over the last four years I've been producing a lot of projects that I'm in or part of. That's not so much new, but it's the way I'd like to head.

Samuel Goldwyn Films

Even though he's been in Hollywood blockbusters, he sees the importance of smaller, intimate films as a way to reach audiences.

Because we can deal with more specific subjects. Filmmaking is a great way to educate, but you can only educate so much from a big blockbuster. When you can deal with films that look at the human condition in a specific way it can be very useful and very entertaining. And I think that we need to keep that engine going and feed those stories and feed those thoughts with smaller performances. There are some really wonderful films out at the moment like Moonlight. Films that are very small and have really interesting subjects. I think those films should always be made. I definitely make it an effort to be part of them. It's where the more interesting characters are.

He's a modern renaissance man, and he tries to balance his acting life with other creative pursuits.

It's multitasking. There are only 24 hours in a day, basically, and in the moments where I've got a little quiet time I work on music sometimes and do the things I want to do. But the truth is you need something else to balance out when you're an actor. When you delve into characters deeply it can be a little bit mind boggling. I play very extreme characters and you can only do so much of that without going nuts. I tend to use my music and other things to alleviate that and to counterbalance that.

He has a new album coming out soon—but he doesn't plan on retiring from acting.

I have an album called Hiatus, which is aptly named because I want to take one. I'm probably going to put it out in the next year. It's an album of my beats, house music. I've been working for so many years as an actor and I want to do something different for a little bit. I'm never going to leave acting or filmmaking, but I'll take a break from it for a minute.

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