Mascara-streaked cheeks and puffy eyes were not part of the look I intended for my first meeting with Idris Elba. And yet, that is how I ungracefully make my first introduction to the actor. The excuse for my messiness is actually a good one.
I’m standing outside the theatre where Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom has premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Elba – more specifically, his portrayal of Nelson Mandela – has moved me to tears.
The day after Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom debuts, I meet Elba again; this time, more composed. The British actor, who turned 41 just two days before the premiere, also looks calmer, as he sips on his drink atop the Park Hyatt hotel overlooking Toronto’s magnificent skyline.
“I was nervous,” he admits, his eyes gazing out over the vista.
“I hadn’t seen that edit of the film yet, but it was good. It was very emotional; that theatre was charged with energy. I wasn’t sure at first. I could feel the room was getting a little restless in the first half. So was I. It’s a long film, a long journey to take. But when they laughed at a point when I didn’t expect them to laugh – and it was a hearty laugh – I thought, ‘Ah, they’re still here’.”
The film may have its shortcomings but it’s a respectful epic adaptation that tells the story of how Madiba became the silver-haired icon we love today. An icon whose face we all know so well – a face that has symbolised South Africa’s struggle for freedom and democracy. A face to which the British-born actor bears little resemblance.
“Mandela?” he remembers exclaiming when he got the call, while in Toronto making another film, asking him to take on the role. “What? You’ve got to be joking! Call me back!” he said.
“I was hesitant, because I don’t feel qualified, to be honest,” he says.
“I mean, I’ve had a great career, but I thought this could spin me off. If I get this wrong, you guys would never speak to me again. Ever. You’d be saying, ‘That Idris should’ve just stayed Stringer Bell’.”
It’s Stringer Bell, the suave American character he brought to life on HBO’s The Wire, who Elba has to thank for the career-defining opportunity to play Mandela. Director Justin Chadwick was a big fan of the show, considered by many to be the greatest TV series ever created.
Chadwick says Elba was the lifeline he needed to carry the movie: “Once we had our Mandela, everything else would fall into place.”
But Stringer Bell was also Elba’s own lifeline – literally.
Like Mandela, who was given the name Nelson at school, it was at school in London where Idrissa Akuna Elba shortened the name he’d been given by his Sierra Leonean father and Ghanian mother, to begin pursuing his love of acting.
Small TV parts led to more established roles, but he decided to leave behind a burgeoning career in the UK to make it in New York. But he battled to find acting work, and had reached the point where he had separated from his pregnant wife, was sleeping in a van and his visa was about to expire.
When he got the call to audition for The Wire, his luck finally turned around, setting the course for his promising career – from a Golden Globe-winning turn on Luther to more prominent film roles in Prometheus and Pacific Rim. Now Mandela looks set to spin his star even further into orbit.
Elba put in the time and he put in the effort – moving to Cape Town for two months before the shooting, and spending a night in a cell on Robben Island, alone with the ghosts of apartheid’s past.
The film touches on Madiba’s shortcomings and his womanising, bringing a fuller perspective to his character.
Elba, though affable and cool, is no saint either, having recently revealed he dealt drugs while he was working as a bouncer at a club in the early days of his move to New York.
But the father of a 14-year-old is a different man now – playing Mandela had an impact on his personal life too.
“Filming this movie coincided with a very traumatic time in my life and Mr Mandela taught me how to deal with that, without even knowing. It was like studying a great martyr. I’m very different to Mr Mandela. I’m hot-headed, I have a temper – hey, I’m an artist,” he laughs, “but I found that after this film, I almost instantly stepped into a new phase of my life.”
I repeat the words I tried to mumble out through my tears the night before – about how he absolutely gets Madiba, so much so that the audience forgets it isn’t the real deal himself talking on-screen.
Elba says it means a lot coming from a South African. I have to walk away quickly because there’s something in my eye.
* The full story and photographic shoot appears in GQ magazine, on sale now.