Arguably, Idris Elba is a talented actor and uhh musician. In addition he wowed us last summer with his
Heimdall portrayal. Here, he talks about handling characters that are unknown and how he approaches them.
Is it liberating to be in a movie like this and you’re an original character, so you don’t have to worry about people’s expectations? People expect Superman to be one way, or Spider-Man to be a certain way. You have a clean slate.
Elba: Yeah. Free agent. Free agent character. And the actors that play those characters are allowed to carve something quite unique if they want to. So for me, yeah, it was just great. I’m sure if I was to play a character that everyone knows, the detail, the attention to what the comic readers want would be on the forefront of my mind. But here on the forefront of my mind is creating a dynamic character and having a little fun with it. I like to make him realistic, because obviously with the dialogue and the plots, it’s like, so I try and steep my character in some sort of realism. So even if it’s over the top, I like to keep ‘em grounded and real, so you believe every moment, you know? You believe it.
And I wanted to know if you could talk a little bit about how you prepare for all your roles? Maybe you do things differently for certain roles, or more time for others? If you could sort of talk about your process.
Elba: It really depends on the role, obviously. Some roles demand that I do the work, but to be honest my whole style is never to do too much work. Because the truth of the matter is if the script is good enough and the plot is good enough and it’s air tight, it allows the actor to actually live that moment right there off the page, so the preparation takes away. Now there are certain things you have to prepare—like dialect and special skills. But in the moment interaction between two characters on the page doesn’t need—for me, I don’t need to prepare that. For example, in Luther, my BBC thing, there isn’t that much preparation for it. It’s all on the page. I know my character; it’s written on the page. And then basically I show up on the day and the actors and I get on with it. But then in something like Sometimes in April, where I played a Rwandan soldier, I went to Rwanda for a month before that to soak in what that feels like. That was my preparation process, was a matter of just understanding the environment that my character lived in. It was a period piece, it was 10 years prior, so I needed to understand the time period and what was going on there. So that’s my process, it’s more cerebral than anything. I try not to overdo it with the method stuff. If it’s on the page, then I’ll live it, you know?
Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance
STARRING:
Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider
Idris Elba as Moreau
Johnny Whitworth as Roarke Carrigan/Blackout
Violante Placido as Nadya
Ciarán Hinds as The Devil
Christopher Lambert as Methodius
RELEASE DATE: February 17, 2012