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I was always a real athletic kid. Then when I got older, I just figured it was part of life to keep training.
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Are there differences between black actors' opportunities and white actors' opportunities? Yes, there are. It's been said.
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In 'Pacific Rim' I had to have a haircut I wouldn't usually rock. However, the moustache I had in the film - that might have to come out again. It was a good moustache. Good times.
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I love to play different roles. That's just the kind of actor I am.
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The role of my agent has just been to get me in the room. If I can get in the room - say the character is just a charming man who lives next door - then I'll walk in there and be as charming as I can and they will think to themselves, 'I don't see why we can't cast him.'
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There's the argument that you can relate to someone who's completely unrelatable. In the way that a director shows you his imagination on a film, then I get to show you my imagination in a big dumb character.
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Twenty or 30 years from now, I'm going to be on a beach in Jamaica.
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I did a rendition of 'Billie Jean' which is on my Soundcloud. I put it on Twitter, and it got about 3000 hits that day.
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It could be Grammy night, Oscar night, whatever - I don't feel the pressure to be there.
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Sean Connery wasn't the Scottish James Bond and Daniel Craig wasn't the blue-eyed James Bond. So if I played him, I don't want to be called the black James Bond.
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The one album I can't live without is called 'Cumbolo' by a band called Culture. Every song on their album is deep, but there's one in particular called 'This Train.' I have a tattoo of the lyrics on my left arm.
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I was cast in 'Thor' and I'm cast as a Nordic god. If you know anything about the Nords, they don't look like me but there you go. I think that's a sign of the times for the future. I think we will see multi-level casting. I think we will see that, and I think that's good.
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I've always had ambition, and the acting was successful and put my name on the map, but it was never the plan to stop there.
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I'm a little sheepish about it. Whenever I meet fans and they're like, 'Oh, you're so sexy,' I just don't get that. There's no way one man can be universally sexy.
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I've always been DJing; it's just I'm making more of a push for it, making it more public.
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What really excites me in a project is when it goes in a way you haven't been before.
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I want to go to Sierra Leone with something - whether it's some sort of contribution to healthcare, or to the entertainment industry. My cousin is a nurse; we are talking about opening a clinic.
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In some countries, no one knows who Idris Elba is.
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I was on a well-beaten path of actors - what we all call 'the Law and Order route'. I spent two years of auditioning for everything... and then 'The Wire' came up.
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Because I was big, I didn't have to listen to anyone doubting me. I was just considered good at football or whatever, there were no questions about it.
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There's a fast-track if you can do the networking. For some personalities it works, but for mine it doesn't.
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I did green screen for the first time! I wouldn't like to do a whole movie of green screen, though. You kind of forget the plot a little - like being in a Broadway play and doing it over and over and forgetting your line halfway through.
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The adrenaline feeling of jumping out of cliffs and bikes and all of that is very specific to the film. In 'Pac Rim' I'm not doing that so much. There isn't that touch stonework for me in it, but there is a lot of action.
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I've never had to explain 'Prometheus' to people, ever. Most people get it.