EmailHis face and name will be unfamiliar to many, but if you are one of those who do know who Idris Elba is, it is likely you are already a fan.
People magazine named him one of its 100 most beautiful people in the world last year. In 2005 he was one of Essence magazine's 10 hottest men on the planet. The Guardian's Charlie Brooker has said he knows heterosexual men who are deeply in love with him. He has written a song for Angie Stone, rapped on Jay-Z's latest album, and his next role will be starring as Beyoncé Knowles's husband in the thriller Obsessed.
But for devoted fans around the world, Elba will always be Stringer Bell, the brooding, self-improving, ultra-violent gangster from the cult HBO series The Wire, which Brooker has called "the best TV show since the invention of radio".
Despite its critical reception, the dense, violent content of The Wire, which has a growing following on DVD, meant it never gave Elba British prime-time exposure. This weekend that will change, with his appearance in the adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith's novel The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, screened on BBC1 on Easter Sunday. Elba plays Charlie Gotso, a shadowy figure in whose Mercedes a collection of human bones is discovered. To those who know him as Stringer Bell, he is almost unrecognisable.
It is not, however, the first time Elba has appeared in a British TV production. Despite his career breakthrough playing a Baltimore villain, the 35-year-old is originally from Hackney, east London, the son of a Ghanaian mother and Sierra Leonean father.
Born Idrissa, he shortened his name at school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting. After a stint in the National Youth Music Theatre (and another working on the production line at the Ford factory in Dagenham), he started his career with roles in the Channel Five soap Family Affairs, the supernatural BBC series Ultraviolet, and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
Frustrated at the lack of roles for black actors in Britain, he moved to New York in 2001, part of an exodus of talented black actors that would include Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Adrian Lester, Marsha Thomason and Thandie Newton. "He was banging it out here, Dangerfield, Family Affairs - but when he moved to New York an actor dropped out of Peter Hall's Troilus and Cressida and we managed to get him an audition for that," says Elba's British agent, Roger Charteris.
"Alexa L Fogel, who's a very famous casting director in America, saw that and said 'I see something phenomenal in him', and gave him The Wire. Those sort of opportunities don't happen here. We don't take people who are at that level and say, 'Go fly with the eagles'. We say, 'Fly with the pigeons, and do that for a while before you go anywhere'."
Paul McKenzie, a contemporary of Elba's who now edits the black lifestyle magazine Touch, gave up acting after being invited to an audition for Crimewatch. "It is such a shame for an actor as talented as Idris to have to go to America to make his name.
"It is getting better, but we often say it, and we are not whingeing - black people are massively under-represented on TV, and the roles that are written for us are incredibly narrow."
It was a particular shame for Elba, says the director Jim O'Hanlon, who has worked with him, because he is demonstrably so talented. "The big thing with Idris is presence, that is the big word, both as an actor and as a person. He often has fewer lines than anyone else, but you still feel he has the bigger part, because he's luminous."
Impressed by his "extraordinary" performance in The Wire, O'Hanlon enticed him back to the UK for his football drama All in the Game, where he was looking for an actor with the charisma to go toe-to-toe with Ray Winstone. "He's a very beautiful man, and he just has that presence and confidence that very beautiful people often have," he says.
But despite the Hackney-meets-Harlem swagger - Elba also DJs and his US success has led to friendships with Puffy and Ludacris - O'Hanlon says what is most surprising about Elba is his reserve. "He is not a showy actor. You see in No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, he does so much with his eyes, how he looks at people, how he listens to people.
"I think he could be huge. He looks like a star, and he comes across as a star, and if you are going to be a major player in Hollywood that is one of the qualities you need. But of course it's backed up in Idris's case with being a fantastic actor."
McKenzie says his readership love him. "He's got presence, he's got charm, he's a bloody good actor and he's English. He just ticks all the boxes. There are actors, whatever their colour, who guys want to be and girls want to sleep with. From a guy's point of view, there are people - actors or sports stars or whoever - who, if your girlfriend left you for him, you'd hold the door and understand it. He is definitely one."
The CV
Born September 6 1972
Family One daughter
Career Elba was helping his uncle's wedding DJ business at 14. At 19 he worked in nightclubs under the DJ nickname Big Driis
Television Bramwell and Absolutely Fabulous (1995), Family Affairs (1997), Dangerfield (1999), Law and Order (2001). Best known as Stringer Bell in The Wire (2002). Other recent TV work includes Throw Away the Key, World of Trouble, All in the Game and No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Theatre Troilus and Cressida (NYC, 2001)
Films include Belle Maman (1999), Sorted (2000), Buffalo Soldiers (2001), Sometimes in April (2005), 28 Weeks Later, American Gangster (2007)
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