“Africans, we hold on to our youths and whip them into shape.”

“Are there differences between black actors' opportunities and white actors' opportunities? Yes, there are. It's been said.”

“As an actor, you're trained to do the right thing, be politically correct, say your lines, say the right thing about the people you're working with.”

“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.”

“Bond? It is a bit like saying, 'Do you want to play Superman?' Anyone would dream of it. It's one of the most coveted roles in film. I'd be honoured. But I don't know if it will actually happen. I'm just happy with the idea of being associated with it. It's nice there's a lot of good will.”

“Every leading lady I work with, I'll see if I can get a song out of them and put it on an album.”

“I don't get recognised that much yet in London, but when I do I get a real sense of achievement.”

“I don't have a place that I call home at the moment because there's no point. I mean, I'm a traveling circus for a while. It's weird. Like, if I wanted to go home, there's nowhere to go. I just go to a hotel. But I've kind of gotten used to it.”

“I get criticized for taking roles in films like 'Ghost Rider 2', but if you look at my resume, dude, I've mixed it up as much as I can.”

“I knew that if I wanted to be all I could be, I would have to go to the U.S. It took three years to get the accent right.”

“I love bikes. I used to own one, but I fell off it when I was younger and that was the end of my bike riding days until now.”

“I tend to stay away from the comics.”

“I think 'The Wire' really is relatable. It reflects an ongoing issue across America, about inaccuracies in major cities between rich and the poor and some of the things that go on behind the red tape of council and government bodies.”

“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.”

“I was into Spider Man when I was a kid and that was the only comic I've ever read.”

“I was really ambitious, so I was innovative. I was one of the first DJs to do live calls, 'cause I found this phone device that would pick up other people's voices.”

“I wasn't bad at school, but I was never a bookworm.”

“I'd rather a young black actor read about success as opposed to how tough it was. I get these roles because I can act and that's it. Hopefully that's it.”

“If I was gonna go to jail, I don't want to go to jail for stealing a bottle of water. I'll steal that USD20 million. At least then it was worth it.”

“If you are going to call a film a 'black film' then you have to make a film that represents everyone that's black, which is almost impossible. That is why white films are not called white films, they are just called 'films.'”

“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.”

“I'm an ambitious person. I never consider myself in competition with anyone, and I'm not saying that from an arrogant standpoint, it's just that my journey started so, so long ago, and I'm still on it and I won't stand still.”

“I'm not interested in making all-black films - I come from a very diverse culture; I want to work with every type of person. I work a lot with women executives because they seem to be a lot more open minded about that and a lot more progressive in that way.”

“I'm rebelling against being handed a career, like, 'You're the next this; you're the next that.' I'm not the next anything, I'm the first me. I can't be myself, I can't just be Idris Elba. But that's just the nature of the business.”

“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.”

“In some countries, no one knows who Idris Elba is.”

“It could be Grammy night, Oscar night, whatever - I don't feel the pressure to be there.”

“It was deeply important for me to understand where Mandela came from. Because we know where he was going, and that's a famous story, but who was he? Where did he come from? What was his upbringing?”

“It's actually quite criminal how 'The Wire' was systematically ignored.”

“It's weird because my parents don't really understand my business. I get fan mail all day long, but if a piece happens to get to their house, they're like, 'Oh, my God, you've got a fan! You have to write them back. You have to do it!'”

“I've always been DJing; it's just I'm making more of a push for it, making it more public.”

“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.”

“I've been DJing mostly, and most DJs end up producing. That's just me.”

“Not obsessed with particularly Nike, but sneakers in general. I love them.”

“Now there are certain things you have to prepare - like dialect and special skills. But in the moment, interaction between two characters on the page doesn't need - for me, I don't need to prepare that.”

“People expect me to be that guy. But I'm more east London boy than east Baltimore.”

“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.”

“The English are good at bad guys - the James Bond-style villain, cunning, slow-burning. The Americans are much more obvious about it.”

“The less I talk about being black, the better.”

“The long and short of it is that I am now in a position in England to green light movies, and that's really excellent - not high-budget movies, but movies none the less.”

“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.”

“The only thing I change mainly is my sneakers. I love sneakers. But everything's sort of black or jeans. Jeans, always.”

“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.'”

“There's a fast-track if you can do the networking. For some personalities it works, but for mine it doesn't.”

“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.”

“Twenty or 30 years from now, I'm going to be on a beach in Jamaica.”

“When I look at my body of work, I've played a lot of characters who are morally conflicted - 'I'm right, no I'm wrong, I don't know what to do!' I want to play more characters who don't care as much, and who aren't as measured. They are what they are, no apologies.”

“When I was a kid, I thought it was tough.”

“Whether it's music or acting, that creativity all comes from the same source.”

“Yeah, I know, any time you hear an actor say, 'I do music', you cringe. But I want to be gradual with my music. I want to earn my stripes.”

“You know, film is the ultimate goal in an actor's career. I mean, I still love TV. I have my feet firmly stamped in it. But my opportunities have been bigger and better.”

“You watch yourself age and it's hard to feel like a sex symbol.”