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" 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. "

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

" I would never be fearful of any character. "

" The less I talk about being black, the better. "

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

" 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. "

" Television has shied away from being too dark, because so much has happened to us recently here in the West, and people are sort of wanting to see more uplifting sorts of things. "

" 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. "

" 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'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. "

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

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

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

" I have one of these bodies. When I was younger, I could never put weight on, and now that I'm a little older, there's a natural sort of chubbiness coming. But honestly, if I work out for a week, it drops off in no time. "

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

" I was always a real athletic kid. Then when I got older, I just figured it was part of life to keep training. "

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

" 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 still sing on bits and pieces. Singing's something that I love to do, but it's not something that I pursue as a career. "

" 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 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. "

" Every single film I've done, it's about the character. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "