Idris Elba

Idris Elba, whose mother is Ghanaian, won a Golden Globe for playing DCI John Luther and earlier became famous as Stringer Bell in The Wire. Time put him on its 100 most influential people list in 2016.

Background

Idrissa Akuna Elba was born in London on 6 September 1972 to a Sierra Leonean father and a Ghanaian mother. He trained at the National Youth Music Theatre and first became known in the UK soap Family Affairs.

Screen

He played Stringer Bell in HBO's The Wire (2002 to 2004) and Luther in the BBC series from 2010 to 2019, earning several Emmy nominations. He played Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013) and a warlord in Beasts of No Nation (2015), which won him a Screen Actors Guild award. He has been Heimdall in Marvel's Thor films, Bloodsport in The Suicide Squad, and the voice of Knuckles in the Sonic films and Chief Bogo in Zootopia. Other films include American Gangster, Prometheus, Pacific Rim, Molly's Game and A House of Dynamite (2025). He directed Yardie (2018), starred in Apple TV+'s Hijack, and also performs as DJ Big Driis. He has been knighted, and his films have taken more than US$9.8 billion worldwide.