Actor Idris Elba, who was once floated as the next James Bond and has starred in Marvel’s Avengers and the Fast and Furious blockbusters, said he no longer wishes to identify himself as a black actor and be put into a racial box.
The Luther star made his stunningly anti-woke comments in an interview with Esquire magazine where he said that describing himself as a “black actor” put him in a box.
“I stopped describing myself as a Black actor when I realized it put me in a box,” he said.
While Elba agreed that racism can be “very real,” he also felt that people can become too obsessed with racism.
“As humans, we are obsessed with race. And that obsession can really hinder people’s aspirations, hinder people’s growth. Racism should be a topic for discussion, sure. Racism is very real,” Elba said. “But from my perspective, it’s only as powerful as you allow it to be. We’ve got to grow. We’ve got to. Our skin is no more than that: It’s just skin.”
Elba clarified that he has experienced genuine racism in his life, but also explained that he does not “go to my Black friends, in conversation, and ask them to tell me about racism.”
“I’m not any more Black because I’m in a white area, or more Black because I’m in a Black area. I’m Black,” he said. “And that skin stays with me no matter where I go, every day, through Black areas with white people in it, or white areas with Black people in it. I’m the same Black.”
Actors will often talk about a need for representation and how they entered the entertainment industry to change something. Elba said he never felt the impetus to “become an actor because I didn’t see Black people doing it and I wanted to change that.”
“I did it because I thought that’s a great profession and I could do a good job at it,” he said. “As you get up the ladder, you get asked what it’s like to be the first Black to do this or that. Well, it’s the same as it would be if I were white. It’s the first time for me. I don’t want to be the first Black. I’m the first Idris.”
Idris closed on a universal message, hoping that both black and white kids can learn from his career and legacy.
“I might be the first to look like me to do a certain thing. And that’s good, to leave as part of my legacy,” he said. “So that other people, Black kids, but also white kids growing up in the circumstances I grew up in, are able to see there was a kid who came from Canning Town who ended up doing what I do. It can be done.”