Idris Elba Quotes

I have done comedy and now I did a negative role. So for future I guess I wanna do an emotional character and make my audience cry.

I've spent a lot of my career playing heroes, like Jared in 'The Pretender,' but playing part of a dysfunctional family is more interesting.

I humbly apologise for reality Television.

I want to make movies that pierce people's hearts and touch them in some way, even if it's just for the night while they're in the cinema; in that moment, I want to bring actual tears to their eyes and goosebumps to their skin.

I don't know if I've ever screamed or cried for a band.

With 'Richard,' I was excited to make this film with such an amazing role for an actor. Play a wide range of emotion and really invest myself in the character.

I'm interested in the impact my movies have on people and how it affects them, and what they like and what they don't like - and what they take away from it. What leaves an impression, you know?

After 'Pitch Perfect' premiered, I've got so many sweet expressions from people who enjoyed 'Pitch Perfect' and now the episode of 'Game of Thrones.'

I like the hot-cold, the sugar-salt, being able to play over-the-top and dramatic things - in the same film. Just as in my life, I can be very funny and at other times almost extinguished.

I consider those actors who amaze me are somehow less attractive to me than those actors who move me.

You can go to a play that is enjoyable because it's funny, and then on the next night you can go to a play that's enjoyable because it's 'disturbing.'

I think the thing that is meaningful is when I can tell that someone's been affected by the movie or by anything I made.

I remember once having to stop performing when I thought an elderly man a few rows back from the front was actually going to die because he was laughing so hard.

I love to laugh and dance. That's kind of my nature, though I end up always playing these angry, depressing characters.

My belief is that if I can achieve that level of entertainment by making the audience happy or sad or angry, then I have succeeded as an actor and have done my job. The profits and the fame as an actor will eventually surface, but first and foremost comes the work as an actor.

For me, the performance was always playing different people. And so when I got older, was no longer the romantic leading movie star, it became more and more interesting for me, the characters I played, you know?

I find that after a screening, people really want to come and tell you what they feel.

'Funny Games' was conceived as a provocation. My other films are different. If people feel my other films are, or respond to them as provocation, then that's quite different. 'Funny Games' is the only one of mine where my intention was to provoke the audience.

I suppose I've got a reputation for playing quite extreme characters and making them quite believable.

I loved my role on Who's the Boss? There is always some of me in every character that I play.

It's really fantastic because families can come to my shows and they all like it. It's really weird.

I do feel a wave come over me when I hear those two words, 'Star' and 'Wars,' said together. I feel tense, shut up, and stare into the middle distance.

I think people assume I only do light things because of the movies that are like 'Hairspray' and 'John Tucker Must Die.' But I think it's all just based on material that I really like and that speaks to me.

I often hear actors say during their interviews: 'I want to play a crazy person, a murderer, or someone who's on edge.' But that question scares me. I mean, of course there are characters I'd like to play, but I can't really say specifically who they are. It's much too hard to play a convincing normal person as it is.

How many actors have a shot at being a part of something that became a part of pop culture? It's been very rewarding. I'm not getting the 20 million bucks for the new movies, but at least I'm getting warmth and recognition from people wherever I go.