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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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" 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. "

Idris Elba

Good

Questions

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

Idris Elba

Villain

Good

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Idris Elba

Feeling

Film

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Idris Elba

People

See

" 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. "

Idris Elba

You

Look

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

Idris Elba

Been

Most

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

" If you go to Africa and you're white, you're probably not going to get that much work either. But the fact is that there is a longer history of black integration in the U.S. I don't have any resentment about this: I did the maths, calculated it against my ambition and decided to leave England. "

Idris Elba

Black

History

" There has been a big debate about it: can a black man play a Nordic character? "

" I try to fit in workouts whenever I can. "

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

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

" 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. "

Idris Elba

Future

Think

" 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. "

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

Idris Elba

Expect

London

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

Idris Elba

Just

Public

" 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. "

" 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 $20 million. At least then it was worth it. "

Idris Elba

Worth It

Want

" 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 would never be fearful of any character. "

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

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

" 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. "