Idris Elba

Idrissa Akuna "Idris" Elba, OBE (born 6 September 1972) is an English actor, producer, director, musician, DJ, and rapper. He is best known for taking versatile acting roles including Stringer Bell in the HBO series The Wire, DCI John Luther on the BBC One series Luther and Nelson Mandela in the biographical film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013). He has been nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, winning one and was nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Elba appeared in Ridley Scott's American Gangster (2007) and Prometheus (2012). Elba portrays Heimdall in Thor (2011) and its sequels Thor: The Dark World (2013) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017), as well as Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018). He also starred in Pacific Rim (2013), Beasts of No Nation (2015), for which he received BAFTA, and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Molly's Game (2017). In 2016, he voiced Chief Bogo in Zootopia, Shere Khan in the live action/CGI adaptation of The Jungle Book, Fluke in Finding Dory and played the role of Krall in Star Trek Beyond. He made his directorial debut in 2018 with an adaptation of the 1992 novel Yardie by Victor Headley.

Images: Harald Krichel, Walterlan Papetti, Luke Ford, Jessica Lea/DFID [CC BY-SA 4.0]

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