I had the chance to sit down and talk to Idris Elba, star of the new movie The Losers. The Losers hits theaters on Friday and is a laugh out loud action movie the whole family can enjoy. During our interview Idris and myself talked about The Losers, his musical inspiration, video vixen Tahiry and chicks grabbing his nuts. No really! Check out the interview and leave a comment to let me know what you think.
Xilla: So your in “The Losers”, why did you decide to be apart of this project?”
Elba: “The script was wicked, the writing was really good, and the characterization was phenomenal, especially for my character. I had the opportunity to really play an arch throughout the whole film. I also wanted to work with the actors, so Slyvain was a great visionary and young director with lots of chops who wanted to make a really different and interesting cool film, so I was in.”
Xilla: Slyvain told me that there was a lot of ‘yo momma’ jokes going around the set, did any of them hit close to home?
Elba: “Yeah we would just go at it. When anyone said anything that was too risky, ‘yo momma’ jokes would just come out. It was Slyvain’s idea and eventually we started cracking on him until he was like alright no more ‘yo momma’ jokes.”
Xilla: Now that your career is going to a whole new level, are you finding it hard to make that that transition to being on a series to actually doing movies?
Elba: “It’s actually a welcomed transition because the paychecks are bigger. With that said I haven’t done television in a long time, with the recent exception of doing some television in England, but movies I have been doing for three to four years now and I’ve been getting bigger parts which is a good feeling. It means a lot more work and it means that I pay attention a lot more but it is a great feeling.”
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Xilla: Did it take you a long time to work on your American accent?
Elba: “I’ve lived in the states for about 13 years now and I have been coming to the states for a long time so it took me a good four years to understand why Americans speak the way they speak and to understand the cultural aspect to the accent. There are actors that can do a good phonetic accent but they really don’t understand the culture, the accent is cool but it’s just unfamiliar. With me, I am a tax paying resident for a number of years so I used that to help my accent become more authentic.
Xilla: I reached out on twitter for some questions. Some of them wanted to know are there any significant Black English music acts that we should be on the look out for?
Elba: “Yeah, there are some good people that are coming up. I have been working with a lot of producers. ACB is a producer as well as Wiley. There is an artist that I have been working with by the name of Baby Blue. She is a rapper and she has a dope ill sound, you can check her out on BabyBlueonline.com. She just has something that excites me in terms of music. There is also an R&B guy named Michael Lloyd Pink, he reminds of Maxwell and he too is from the UK and his music is really good.’
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Xilla: Alot of t
