Idris Elba’s first name at birth was Idrissa. His father, Winston, was from Sierra Leone. His mother, Eve, was from Ghana.
Elba was born on 6 September 1972 in Hackney, east London, the only child of two West African immigrants. His father worked at the Ford car plant in Dagenham. The family lived on the Holly Street Estate in Hackney, and later in east London’s Canning Town. That upbringing, a working-class London childhood in a West African household, runs through almost everything he has said about himself since.
From Hackney to Baltimore
Elba’s route to fame was slow. He did odd jobs, worked nights and DJed under the name Big Driis while taking small roles in British television. In the late 1990s he moved to the United States to look for bigger work.
The breakthrough came with The Wire. From 2002 he played Stringer Bell, the calculating drug lord who takes business classes and tries to run a criminal operation like a corporation. American audiences assumed he was from Baltimore. Many were shocked to hear his real London accent in interviews.
Luther and the leading roles
In 2010 he took the title role in the BBC’s Luther, playing the brilliant, self-destructive detective John Luther. The role won him a Golden Globe and made him a star at home. Film work followed, including Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), in which he played Nelson Mandela, the Marvel Thor films, Pacific Rim and Beasts of No Nation, which he shot in Ghana and for which he won a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Ghana and Sierra Leone
Elba has spoken often about his West African roots and about the pull of both countries. His link with Sierra Leone is the more public one: he has been involved in development projects there and was granted Sierra Leonean citizenship in 2019, and he has worked on plans for a sustainable development on Sherbro Island.
His Ghanaian side came through his mother. Eve Elba has kept a low profile, though she has appeared with her son at premieres and award ceremonies over the years. For Ghanaian fans, the connection is a point of pride, and Elba’s name comes up whenever lists of Hollywood stars with Ghanaian roots are shared.
Beyond acting
Elba has kept his music career going alongside acting, producing and DJing at festivals. He was appointed an OBE in 2016. In 2020 he was one of the first public figures to announce a positive COVID-19 test, and he and his wife, Sabrina Dhowre Elba, became UN goodwill ambassadors focused on rural farming and food security.
He has been tipped for years as a possible James Bond, a role he has never taken. The London boy with a Ghanaian mother and a Sierra Leonean father ended up as one of the most recognisable British actors of his generation without ever needing it.
