Idris Elba talks picking projects, music and his new film ‘Takers’

‘Takers’ was #1 at the Box Office this weekend and MakingOf recently sat down with one of its stars, Idris Elba. Idris talks about making a heist film, mix tapes, and why he’d like to pull a heist with Tina Fey.

Question: You previously talked about not wanting to play characters like drug dealers anymore, so what attracted you to the part of a bank robber?

Idris Elba: This film is a heist film with a heist gang, and I’ve always been attracted to that type of film. I hadn’t done one before. My character in this film is sort of a career criminal. He’s been doing it a long time, and he doesn’t have a whole lot to say in this film. That’s what attracted me to it, you know, that it’s going to be a stylish film about old-school criminals. In this day and age we rob banks with computers, but Gordon is old-school. We’ll just blow a hole in the ground and as this truck comes by we just have it drop in there and then we’ll steal $32 million in hot cash. That’s ambitious.

Question: Is this the most action-oriented role you’ve had to date?

Idris Elba: No. “The Losers” was a little bit more action-oriented. In this film the action scenes aren’t really around me. I blast off a few guns and drive a couple of cars, but that’s about it.

Question: Chris Brown has most of the action choreography.

Idris Elba: He has that amazing chase sequence.

Question: What do you think appeals audiences to these heist movies, because we’ve seen a lot of them lately.

Idris Elba: I think they’re just quite ambitious. I guess the idea of this group of guys that are going to attempt to steal something that is unstealable is quite the appeal. It’s an impossible task and it’s teamwork and these crazy personalities are getting together. Traditionally, people love these types of films.

Question: Have you got favorites in that genre?

Idris Elba: The original “Italian Job,” that was a freaking great film.

Question: Although your character was a criminal, he was likable. Did you bring something specific to the role to make him more relatable?

Idris Elba: That character has a storyline which deviates from the film’s pace, if you like. This character has a sister with a backstory that sort of delves into who he is a little bit more than some of the other characters, which is an attraction for me.

Question: When you jump into a project, what are you looking for in a director, and in what ways did John give you that?

Idris Elba: Directors are leaders in films. When a director walks onto a set has 1,500 heads of departments talk to him, and he has to talk to actors, and actors, we don’t talk about anything else but ourselves. John showed guidance, and he had lived with this script, which was originally called “Bone Deep.” He just kept this project as close as he could to his heart, and then he had to give it to all of us. For me it’s about directors giving us leadership and giving us a vision for what he wants. John lived with this film for such a long time, and it was really clear that he wanted to see this group of guys come to life.

Question: You’ve all lived with it for a while though. Wasn’t it filmed a while ago?

Idris Elba: Yeah, it was a long time ago. Before T.I.P. went to jail, how about that? I just finished “Obsessed” and then I went into this one.

Question: It seems though that your characters had really good chemistry. Did that come naturally?

Idris Elba: You would expect there would be lots of egos, but there weren’t. We all snapped on each other the whole time. We were taking the piss out on each other the whole time. That works with the onscreen chemistry.

Question: How about that mix tape you’re making?

Idris Elba: The “Takers” mix tape. Yeah, you know, I DJ, and I have been doing that for a while. I’ve put mix tapes together before. I want to put some music out. What I did is I asked people on my Twitter account to send me stuff that I could submit for the mix tape. I had loads of music sent to me, and T.I.P and Chris Brown were giving me some music. I’m also going to mix it up with some completely unknowns from the land of Twitterverse.

Question: Can we expect that on a soundtrack, or is it just a hobby thing?

Idris Elba: You know, mix tapes are for free and you send them out. There is no “Takers” soundtrack as yet. This is just DJ Idris presents.

Question: I was wondering if you talked a lot about music with Chris Brown and T.I.P.?

Idris Elba: Never, no, never. As a musician, I don’t like to talk to rapper/actors about music. It’s just corny. I worked with Beyonce and we never spoke about music.

Question: You are obviously into music, so what made you choose acting over music exclusively?

Idris Elba: You know, music was a hobby for me. DJ’ing was a hobby. I was a pirate radio DJ, and I had to get a real job. But I still get out there and I get paid. I’m not a headliner or anything like that and I definitely don’t use my acting to become a more famous DJ.

Question: Do people like Chris and T.I.P. come to you for acting tips?

Idris Elba: No. When we’re doing a scene, with T.I.P. and I especially, we would discuss things that are just slightly deeper than was on the page. A director sometimes may not know how to bring that out of a performer, and with me, you know, I do. It’s a weird relationship with the camera, and you have to know how you’re coming across.

Question: What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about acting?

Idris Elba: That’s a good question. I think people think that it’s always fun. They always say that. These sequences, and especially the action sequences are stringent and very tough to make. They take huge amounts of time. We on average shoot two or three minutes of film per day. That shows you how slow it is. That’s one of the biggest misconceptions.

Question: What did you do to mentally and physically prepare for this role?

Idris Elba: Physically nothing. Mentally, I just tried to get my head into the mindset of a career criminal. Gordon is a guy who was born in the Caribbean and moved to England and then came to L.A. I just had to prepare that character and make him seem real enough to be the leader of this group of thieves. That was one of my challenges: how do I make that feel real.

Question: Your roles seem to be very diverse. Do you go out and purposely look to diversify your body of work?

Idris Elba: Yeah, yeah. I definitely do that. And there are some drawbacks to that. I’m a working actor, but I’m not famous, although I’ve worked in so many different genres. That for me, is great. I don’t want to be known for just one thing, but it is though to sort of keep an audience. I’ve done a film called “Legacy,” which is a passion piece and a very tough film to watch. My audience who loves the mass stuff is not going to gravitate toward that. To me that’s part of the challenge.

Question: Can we expect to see you in something like “The Office” again?

Idris Elba: Yeah man. There is possibly an opportunity for Charles Minor to go back into that world. But yeah, I want to do some comedy. I’ve got this Web series that I’m putting together right now called “Black Gymnast.” It’s about Bobby Black who’s a gymnast, and he’s a terrible, terrible gymnast. But it’s like Mr. Bean.

Question: Speaking of diversifying, I heard that you want to get into directing and working on something with BBC, and I don’t know if you’re kidding or not about even getting offers to do something with porn?

Idris Elba: No, I was absolutely serious about the porn [laughs]. The BBC 2 drama documentary thing that I’m directing hopefully is something that is a bit of a passion piece again. I come from a place in East London where there is an escalating gang-on-gang thing, and kids from as young as 12 get pulled into these post code gangs, which are zip code gangs. These kids are just killing each other, so I wanted to a film about that, and I am telling it from the perspective of a young girl who is thrown into that world. In that story I am sort of looking at why gangs are staring to become popular to kids. There is a huge parenting issue I’m trying to touch on. The porn thing happened because I was on a red carpet and I was really bored and it was something stupid and it stuck.

Question: “Takers” was kind of left open at the end, possibly hinting at a sequel. Would you reprise the role?

Idris Elba: I think so, yeah. I think it would be a prequel if anything. Who knows, I mean we’ll see. It really does depend now on if it really does well. If it’s shit, you won’t see any more of it.

Question: How do you think the audience will react?

Idris Elba: Good question. I’ve seen it twice now. It’s a great film and I think the audiences are going to gravitate to this package that you have. There’s all these fellows, and it’s sexy, and I think it will do well at the box office.

Question: There was a lot of stunt work in the movie. Did you guys do a lot of that yourself?

Idris Elba: We did. We did our own punch effects. This film has a lot of people punching each other. I didn’t have too much stunt work in this film.

Question: In relation to that, a lot of things in the film lead up to that huge shootout. Can you walk us through the process of how you shot this?

Idris Elba: It’s a controlled set, and it’s a hideously long process, because you have this angle and that angle and close-up of the gun, close-up of the squibs. You’ve got blood too. It’s all overly technical, and in the movie, Hayden Christensen does this slow-motion dive, and in real life, it’s like ‘bang.’ It’s a tough process. It’s quite dangerous, because there is live ammo going off.

Question: If you could heist something, what would it be? And what characters from other heist movies would you recruit?

Idris Elba: Good question. What I would do is get a group of people together and we would try and get the secret recipe for the KFC. I would pull together some cool people like Tina Fey. I think her and I will be great together. Maybe Bill Maher. And Snoop.

Interview courtesy of http://www.screeninglog.com/