Idris Elba Net Worth

Biography of Idris Elba

Idris Elba is the star of the series The Wire, Luther, Guy Ritchie’s crime film Rock and Roll, the superhero film Thor, the adaptation of Stephen King’s novel The Dark Tower, and many other noteworthy projects.

Childhood and family

Idrissa (Idris) Akuna Elba was born in the fall of 1972 in the London area of ​​Hackney. His father Winston Elba was an employee at the Ford plant, and his mother Eva, a native of the African state of Ghana, was an office worker. The parents of the future actor met and got married in Winston’s homeland, in Sierra Leone. A little later they emigrated to the UK and settled in London.

The name “Idris” is translated from the Welsh dialect as “ardent lord.” Also, this name is found in the Koran – that was the name of one of the preachers of Islam.

From childhood, Elba’s main passion was music. Together with his uncle, Idris was engaged in songwriting for wedding ceremonies. So he became interested in arranging, then he mastered the DJ console and began performing at parties under the pseudonym Big Driis. In 1987, he, a 16-year-old boy, founded his own studio, which organized the performances of young DJs.

However, this occupation practically did not bring money. And so he had to work hard in several places to provide for himself and his family, pay bills for renting an apartment. During this period, Idris Elba was engaged in mounting tires, calling potential customers of a car service, and at night he worked at the conveyor at the same Ford plant where his father worked.

In the late eighties, Idris Elba won a government grant to study at a school at the National Youth Musical Theatre. It was in this place that he began to study acting. At first, acting was an optional subject in the schedule of a talented young DJ, but over time, the craving for acting grew stronger until it finally outweighed everything else.

Acting career of Idris Elba

Idris Elba began his journey to fame as an actor in the early 90s. In 1995, he landed a role in the first season of Bromwell, a soap opera about Victorian doctors. His character was the handsome thief Charlie Carter, who lost his wife in childbirth with a newborn daughter in her arms.

After that, Idris Elba became a frequent guest on British TV channels, simultaneously appearing on the stage. A kind of breakthrough for the young British guy was Shakespeare’s production of Troilus and Cressida, in which he played the role of Achilles.

Over the next 7 years, Idris was noted in about 20 television projects, but he became famous for the serial detective drama The Wire, which aired on HBO from 2002 to 2008. Elba brought to life the image of the smart and ruthless drug dealer Stringer Bell.

Three years later, he starred in the acclaimed drama Once Upon a Time in April, about the genocide in Rwanda. After that, the musical tape “Gospel”, the melodrama “Daddy’s Girl”, as well as the horror films “The Harvest” and “28 Weeks Later” appeared in the actor’s filmography.

In 2008, Idris starred in Guy Ritchie’s Rock and Roll, forming The Wild Bunch with Gerard Butler and Tom Hardy’s characters. His character, a gangster named Myamlya, literally captivated the audience. In the same year, the actor was first nominated for the US Screen Actors Guild Award for his role in the action movie Gangster by Ridley Scott.

At that time, the award bypassed the actor. However, subsequently the name of a talented native of London began to appear frequently in the list of its nominees. Successful in this regard for the actor were the series “Big Letter” R “, as well as the British detective drama” Luther “. The last of these paintings became especially popular among viewers, and as a result, the role of the London investigator John Luther, an adherent of unconventional methods of work, brought his performer the Golden Globe Award and several Emmy nominations.

The success of “Luther” from the first series attracted the attention of Hollywood directors to the actor, and already in 2011, Idris Elba joined the Marvel Universe, getting the role of the guardian of the gates of Asgard in the blockbuster “Thor” with Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston. The tape (and its sequel, released in 2013) became the actor’s most commercially successful project.

In 2012, the actor collaborated with Ridley Scott again, this time in the science fiction genre. He was remembered by the audience of “Prometheus”, who especially liked their joint scene with Charlize Theron. Soon after, rumors appeared in the press that Idris was one of the most likely candidates for the role of the new James Bond, but the actor himself refused such an opportunity: “James Bond must be beautiful. Yes, I’m getting old.” As a result, Daniel Craig became the new agent 007.

However, in successful projects, Elba did not end up without a Bond movie, which is only worth his role in the action movie Pacific Rim with Charlie Hunnam and the biographical film Long Road to Freedom, where Nelson Mandela himself became his hero, and the company the actor was made up by the beautiful Naomie Harris.

The voice of Idris Elba can be heard in a number of sensational projects: in Zootopia, he voiced the chief of police, Buffalo, and in The Jungle Book, the insidious tiger Sher Khan.

In 2017, the long-awaited film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower was released. Idris Elba played the central character – Roland Deschain, nicknamed the Gunslinger, who seeks to get into the Dark Tower in order to prevent the death of mankind. His antagonist, an ageless magician, was embodied on the screen by Matthew McConaughey.

In the same year, he took part in the Discovery documentary project The Fighter. During the year, he had to take training in wrestling at the limit of his abilities, while not forgetting about shooting, in order to enter the ring in the final against a professional athlete.

Personal life of Idris Elba

From 1997 to 2001, Idris Elba was married to actress Dormove Sherman, who in 2002, shortly after the break, gave him a daughter, Isan. The girl lives with her mother in Atlanta, but her father visits her regularly.

Significantly shorter were the marriage to Kim Elba and the relationship with Sonya Hamlin. From 2012 to 2013, he dated black singer K. Michelle, then for three years he was in a serious relationship with makeup artist Nayana Garth. In 2014, she gave birth to his son Winston. In 2016, the couple broke up.

In 2017, on the set of the film “The Mountains Between Us”, Idris Elba met model Sabrina Dour. The girl is more than 10 years younger than the actor, but the age difference did not prevent this relationship – two years later, the lovers got married in Morocco.

Idris Elba now

Among the latest works of Idris are two projects of the Marvel film studio: “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Avengers: Infinity War”, which brought together again already familiar fans of the franchise Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Robert Downey Jr., permanent Thor Chris Hemsworth, as well as Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson.

The year 2019 presented the audience with a film adaptation of the cult musical Cats, in which, in addition to Elba, the legendary Ian McKellen and Judi Dench took part.

On March 16, 2024, the actor tweeted that he had contracted the coronavirus. But he hastened to reassure the fans that he feels fine – the symptoms are like a common cold, but Idris and his family had to isolate themselves at home.

In September 2024, information appeared in the media that Sabrina Dour would soon give Idris a child. However, after some time, the actor denied this information.

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