Top 100 Elba Quotes
#1. Exile is a dream of a glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution: Elba, not St Helena. It is an endless paradox: looking forward by always looking back. The exile is a ball hurled high into the air.
Salman Rushdie
#2. The Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte had been banished to the island of Elba. However His Imperial Majesty had some doubts wheter a quiet island life would suit him - he was, after all, accustomed to governing a large proportion of the known world.
Susanna Clarke
#3. Idris Elba is a grand actor. He's very larger than life; he's bigger than life.
Nicolas Cage
#4. He looked up at them, a scruffy Napoleon with his laces trailing, exiled to a rose-trellised Elba.
Terry Pratchett
#5. In some countries, no one knows who Idris Elba is.
Idris Elba
#6. The tree feels splintery, nasty to my touch; it feels Floridian, more reptile than vegetable, more stucco than stone. I do loathe this state, their Elba.
Allan Gurganus
#7. My aspiration to spend time at sea as requisite literary training died long ago, as a teenager, on a white-knuckled ferry ride to Elba during a torrential rainstorm [Kushner, Rachel, Diary, London Review of Books, January 14, 2015].
Rachel Kushner
#8. The monster has escaped Elba!" "The tyrant has landed at Cannes!" "Bonaparte meets the troops." "Napoleon approaches Paris." "His Imperial Majesty has entered the capital.
David Frum
#9. 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
#10. It's actually quite criminal how 'The Wire' was systematically ignored.
Idris Elba
#11. I've never had to explain 'Prometheus' to people, ever. Most people get it.
Idris Elba
#12. It was deeply important for me to understand where Mandela came from. Because we know where he was going, and that's a famous story, but who was he? Where did he come from? What was his upbringing?
Idris Elba
#13. The only thing I change mainly is my sneakers. I love sneakers. But everything's sort of black or jeans. Jeans, always.
Idris Elba
#14. People watch three or four episodes at a time of their shows.
Idris Elba
#15. 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.
Idris Elba
#16. Now there are certain things you have to prepare - like dialect and special skills. But in the moment, interaction between two characters on the page doesn't need - for me, I don't need to prepare that.
Idris Elba
#17. 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
#18. I was on a well-beaten path of actors - what we all call 'the Law and Order route'. I spent two years of auditioning for everything ... and then 'The Wire' came up.
Idris Elba
#19. 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
#20. 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
#21. The audience loves it when you pay attention to details.
Idris Elba
#22. If you go to Africa and you're white, you're probably not going to get that much work either. But the fact is that there is a longer history of black integration in the U.S. I don't have any resentment about this: I did the maths, calculated it against my ambition and decided to leave England.
Idris Elba
#23. 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
#24. It could be Grammy night, Oscar night, whatever - I don't feel the pressure to be there.
Idris Elba
#25. 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.
Idris Elba
#26. 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
#27. I would never be fearful of any character.
Idris Elba
#28. Working at BBC, at the head of one of the top dramas, is a tradition for great actors.
Idris Elba
#29. I knew that if I wanted to be all I could be, I would have to go to the U.S. It took three years to get the accent right.
Idris Elba
#30. I've always been DJing; it's just I'm making more of a push for it, making it more public.
Idris Elba
#31. I've always had ambition, and the acting was successful and put my name on the map, but it was never the plan to stop there.
Idris Elba
#32. If you are going to call a film a 'black film' then you have to make a film that represents everyone that's black, which is almost impossible. That is why white films are not called white films, they are just called 'films.'
Idris Elba
#33. I was into Spider Man when I was a kid and that was the only comic I've ever read.
Idris Elba
#34. 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
#35. I've been DJing mostly, and most DJs end up producing. That's just me.
Idris Elba
#36. 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
#37. 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
#38. 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
#39. Being able to work with Ridley Scott on this film is like being able to play on the Olympic team for actors.
Idris Elba
#40. My Father always told me that a fool at 40 is a fool for life.
Idris Elba
#41. 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
#42. I wasn't bad at school, but I was never a bookworm.
Idris Elba
#43. 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
#44. 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
#45. 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
#46. 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.
Idris Elba
#47. Africans, we hold on to our youths and whip them into shape.
Idris Elba
#48. There has been a big debate about it: can a black man play a Nordic character?
Idris Elba
#49. 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.
Idris Elba
#50. 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
#51. What really excites me in a project is when it goes in a way you haven't been before.
Idris Elba
#52. It's weird because my parents don't really understand my business. I get fan mail all day long, but if a piece happens to get to their house, they're like, 'Oh, my God, you've got a fan! You have to write them back. You have to do it!'
Idris Elba
#53. When I was a kid, I thought it was tough.
Idris Elba
#54. The less I talk about being black, the better.
Idris Elba
#55. Because I was big, I didn't have to listen to anyone doubting me. I was just considered good at football or whatever, there were no questions about it.
Idris Elba
#56. I try to fit in workouts whenever I can.
Idris Elba
#57. Whether it's music or acting, that creativity all comes from the same source.
Idris Elba
#58. 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.
Idris Elba
#59. 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
#60. 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
#61. 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
#63. Every leading lady I work with, I'll see if I can get a song out of them and put it on an album.
Idris Elba
#64. I tend to stay away from the comics.
Idris Elba
#65. 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
#66. 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.
Idris Elba
#67. 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
#68. There's a fast-track if you can do the networking. For some personalities it works, but for mine it doesn't.
Idris Elba
#69. I don't have a place that I call home at the moment because there's no point. I mean, I'm a traveling circus for a while. It's weird. Like, if I wanted to go home, there's nowhere to go. I just go to a hotel. But I've kind of gotten used to it.
Idris Elba
#70. I love to play different roles. That's just the kind of actor I am.
Idris Elba
#71. 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.
Idris Elba
#72. People expect me to be that guy. But I'm more east London boy than east Baltimore.
Idris Elba
#73. Are there differences between black actors' opportunities and white actors' opportunities? Yes, there are. It's been said.
Idris Elba
#74. 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
#75. I think there's a tendency for actors like myself, and I don't mean to generalize myself, but I've played 'men's men,' if you will, characters that are simmering rage and calculated. There's a trend not to play anything that is opposed to that.
Idris Elba
#76. When you come from an under-privileged background, oftentimes, you feel a little overwhelmed by your education or your lack of.
Idris Elba
#77. 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
#78. Every single film I've done, it's about the character.
Idris Elba
#79. What I like about their films is that you actually feel the momentum of whatever they're shooting. So, if someone's falling out a window, it gives the opportunity to show what that might feel like.
Idris Elba
#80. Waking up in TRUTH is so much better than living in a lie.
Idris Elba
#81. I'm not interested in making all-black films - I come from a very diverse culture; I want to work with every type of person. I work a lot with women executives because they seem to be a lot more open minded about that and a lot more progressive in that way.
Idris Elba
#82. You watch yourself age and it's hard to feel like a sex symbol.
Idris Elba
#83. Television has shied away from being too dark, because so much has happened to us recently here in the West, and people are sort of wanting to see more uplifting sorts of things.
Idris Elba
#84. 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
#85. Television, for me, is a medium that I'm probably always going to be attached to, one way or another.
Idris Elba
#86. As much as it's nice to step into that massive world of Hollywood and be a big, famous actor, I prefer the career of actors that have really chosen smartly and done really amazing performances. Maybe they're not as known, but their careers are a bit more interesting.
Idris Elba
#87. 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.
Idris Elba
#88. 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
#89. Twenty or 30 years from now, I'm going to be on a beach in Jamaica.
Idris Elba
#90. 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
#91. I get criticized for taking roles in films like 'Ghost Rider 2', but if you look at my resume, dude, I've mixed it up as much as I can.
Idris Elba
#92. I was cast in 'Thor' and I'm cast as a Nordic god. If you know anything about the Nords, they don't look like me but there you go. I think that's a sign of the times for the future. I think we will see multi-level casting. I think we will see that, and I think that's good.
Idris Elba
#93. Not obsessed with particularly Nike, but sneakers in general. I love them.
Idris Elba
#94. 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
#95. I was really ambitious, so I was innovative. I was one of the first DJs to do live calls, 'cause I found this phone device that would pick up other people's voices.
Idris Elba
#96. I don't get recognised that much yet in London, but when I do I get a real sense of achievement.
Idris Elba
#97. 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
#98. I was in The Wire for three years, and I left at the highlight of that.
Idris Elba
#99. 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
#100. You know, film is the ultimate goal in an actor's career. I mean, I still love TV. I have my feet firmly stamped in it. But my opportunities have been bigger and better.
Idris Elba
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