Episode Summary
Digest Idris Elba quotes to live by from the extremely driven and successful actor. He is widely known for his legendary work ethic & dedication to his craft. I think that it is important to study and learn from the habits of successful people. Take heed to the wisdom of Idris Elba with these powerful & inspirational quotes for life that we packaged just for you.
Listen & reflect on these Idris Elba Quotes every day, applying some of the life lessons will equip you with the proper mindset to get to & above your goals!
Who Is Idris Elba?
Idris Elba, in full Idrissa Akuna Elba, (born September 6, 1972, London, England), British actor who was perhaps best known for his work on the television series The Wire and Luther.
Elba was born to immigrant working-class parents (his father was from Sierra Leone, and his mother was born in Ghana). He became interested in drama while attending school and was awarded a grant by the Prince’s Trust to join (1990) the National Youth Music Theatre. Beginning in his late teens, he worked as a disc jockey under the name DJ Big Driis (later Big Driis the Londoner) while auditioning for acting roles. From the mid-1990s he appeared often on British TV, his roles including recurring characters on Insiders (1997), Family Affairs (1997), and Dangerfield (1999).
Idris Elba Quotes
Idris Elba Quotes Podcast
Quotes For Life From Idris Elba
1. “Waking up in TRUTH is so much better than living in a lie.”
— Idris Elba
2. “I love working. I’m a workaholic and I’m really privileged for some of the jobs I get offered and so I just want to keep going.”
— Idris Elba
3. “My definition of bad-ass is that I’m a force of nature and true spirit. I’m self-admitting that, and it sounds vain to say that, but I am.”
— Idris Elba
4. “I’m an ambitious person. I never consider myself in competition with anyone, and I’m not saying that from an arrogant standpoint, it’s just that my journey started so, so long ago, and I’m still on it and I won’t stand still.”
— Idris Elba
5. “My Father always told me that a fool at 40 is a fool for life.”
— Idris Elba
6. “I wasn’t bad at school, but I was never a bookworm.”
— Idris Elba
7. “There’s the argument that you can relate to someone who’s completely un-relatable. 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.”
— Idris Elba
8. “I come from an era, in my world, where you just had to define yourself as who you are and what you do. I happen to be an actor. I happen to be someone that loves to act, that also likes music, that also likes to speak, and that also has an opinion.”
— Idris Elba
9. “I was in The Wire for three years, and I left at the highlight of that.”
— Idris Elba
10. “In ‘Pacific Rim’ I had to have a haircut I wouldn’t usually rock. However, the moustache I had in the film – that might have to come out again. It was a good moustache. Good times.”
— Idris Elba
11. “The only thing I change mainly is my sneakers. I love sneakers. But everything’s sort of black or jeans. Jeans, always.”
— Idris Elba
12. “I love bikes. I used to own one, but I fell off it when I was younger and that was the end of my bike riding days until now.”
— Idris Elba
13. “I’m never shaken or stirred.”
— Idris Elba
14. “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.”
— Idris Elba
15. “If I was gonna go to jail, I don’t want to go to jail for stealing a bottle of water. I’ll steal that $20 million. At least then it was worth it.”
— Idris Elba
16. “When I look at my body of work, I’ve played a lot of characters who are morally conflicted – ‘I’m right, no I’m wrong, I don’t know what to do!’ I want to play more characters who don’t care as much, and who aren’t as measured. They are what they are, no apologies.”
— Idris Elba
17. “The one album I can’t live without is called ‘Cumbolo’ by a band called Culture. Every song on their album is deep, but there’s one in particular called ‘This Train.’ I have a tattoo of the lyrics on my left arm.”
— Idris Elba
18. “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.”
— Idris Elba
19. “I’ve never had to explain ‘Prometheus’ to people, ever. Most people get it.”
— Idris Elba
20. “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 nonetheless.”
— Idris Elba
21. “I think ‘The Wire’ really is relatable. It reflects an ongoing issue across America, about inaccuracies in major cities between rich and the poor and some of the things that go on behind the red tape of council and government bodies.”
— Idris Elba
22. “The less I talk about being black, the better.”
— Idris Elba
23. “I try to fit in workouts whenever I can.”
— Idris Elba
24. “Imagine a film such as Inception with an entire cast of black people – do you think it would be successful? Would people watch it? But no one questions the fact that everyone’s white. That’s what we have to change.”
— Idris Elba
25. “Sean Connery wasn’t the Scottish James Bond and Daniel Craig wasn’t the blue-eyed James Bond. So if I played him, I don’t want to be called the black James Bond.”
— Idris Elba
26. “I watch my daughter wanting to be like other kids and getting upset that she’s not. But I always try and instill in her the idea that she’s perfect as she is.”
— Idris Elba
27. “Nobody likes a celebrity DJ for the sake of style, so I don’t do that – I try to be good at what I do. It’s all about resetting, it’s my escape. It is work, it’s a job, but I just love doing it.”
— Idris Elba
28. “What an honor it was to step into the shoes of Nelson Mandela and portray a man who defied odds, broke down barriers, and championed human rights before the eyes of the world.”
— Idris Elba
29. “I’m tactile, very tactile. A woman who has really nice, looked-after skin is such a turn-on for me. It’s always sexy.”
— Idris Elba
30. “It’s actually quite criminal how ‘The Wire’ was systematically ignored.”
— Idris Elba
31. “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.”
— Idris Elba
32. “It’s really funny because the same people who loved me as Stringer Bell were the same people that were watching ‘Daddy’s Little Girls’ literally in tears.”
— Idris Elba
33. “Bond? It is a bit like saying, ‘Do you want to play Superman?’ Anyone would dream of it. It’s one of the most coveted roles in film. I’d be honoured. But I don’t know if it will actually happen. I’m just happy with the idea of being associated with it. It’s nice there’s a lot of good will.”
— Idris Elba
34. “When you come from an under-privileged background, oftentimes, you feel a little overwhelmed by your education or your lack of.”
— Idris Elba
35. “I’d rather a young black actor read about success as opposed to how tough it was. I get these roles because I can act and that’s it. Hopefully that’s it.”
— Idris Elba
36. “In some countries, no one knows who Idris Elba is.”
— Idris Elba
37. “What really excites me in a project is when it goes in a way you haven’t been before.”
— Idris Elba
38. “Working at BBC, at the head of one of the top dramas, is a tradition for great actors.”
— Idris Elba
39. “I find that a lot of actors who are good and open to challenges have lived a full life. When you walk into an audition, you have more to say for yourself because you come from the real world. It’s more enticing for directors, I think.”
— Idris Elba
40. “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.”
— Idris Elba
41. “Television, for me, is a medium that I’m probably always going to be attached to, one way or another.”
— Idris Elba
42. “The English are good at bad guys – the James Bond-style villain, cunning, slow-burning. The Americans are much more obvious about it.”
— Idris Elba
43. “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.”
— Idris Elba
44. “I’m not a popular actor. I don’t necessarily want to be famous. I want to be known for great work. I want to be known to surprise audiences.”
— Idris Elba
45. “Actors tend to not know how their performances are going to actually be used. Even though the script says one thing, in the edit, it can be something else.”
— Idris Elba
46. “What kind of role do you play after someone like Stringer, you know what I mean? You play another gangster. What’s the point of that? I’ve played the gangster. I try to keep it really varied; it just makes for more of a fun and interesting career.”
— Idris Elba
47. “Being able to work with Ridley Scott on this film is like being able to play on the Olympic team for actors.”
— Idris Elba
48. “I was always a real athletic kid. Then when I got older, I just figured it was part of life to keep training.”
— Idris Elba
49. “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.”
— Idris Elba
50. “I love to play different roles. That’s just the kind of actor I am.”
— Idris Elba
51. “There are things that I really find important, and that we need to remind ourselves of. When you think about disability, do you really think about it? Someone who’s got a full-time trainer or a boxer, someone who’s got a major disability, but who doesn’t let that get in his way, that’s a really good message for someone who is able-bodied. It can make them think, ‘wow, I suppose I could be doing better for myself.”
— Idris Elba
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