Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Related Quotes:

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

" 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 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. "

" I've never had to explain 'Prometheus' to people, ever. Most people get it. "

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

" 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. "

" Apparently, Daniel Craig said I'd be a great Bond. Daniel, why did you say that? Dropped me right in it! What an honor it would be, but also, what an indication of change. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

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

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" I'm tactile, very tactile. A woman who has really nice, looked-after skin is such a turn-on for me. It's always sexy. "

" White actors still get way more money in Hollywood. It's been that way for a very long time. I hope it'll change, but it's a matter of forcing that change. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" I lived in America for a long time before I started working as an actor. Some actors show up on set and have never done an American accent before, so they rely on a slew of technical mechanisms. Part of what makes an accent is understanding why people speak that way - you have to understand the culture. "

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

" I think there's a tendency for actors like myself, and I don't mean to generalize myself, but I've played 'men's men,' if you will, characters that are simmering rage and calculated. There's a trend not to play anything that is opposed to that. "