Idris Elba Quotes

The idea is that in any situation, people have a notion as to who they are and how they should behave. And if you don't behave according to your identity, you pay a cost.

Funny how defined we are by how we present ourselves to the world.

The image is never created by you. It's created by the media, by the people around you. In my real-life self, I would be without make up and in jeans and a T-shirt. But when I'm outside, I'm dressed up. It's not because I enjoy doing it.

For me, I've never really thought of myself as labeled as a shooter or whatever. People can say whatever they want.

'Nimona' is about identity and if who you are is defined by what you look like. It's not a book about body image at all, but I would be lying if I said that wasn't in there even at the conception of it.

The more people know about you, the less they can project who you are supposed to be. It's unfortunate that you really only get one shot at that.

People see me as Andre first. Then they see me as someone who happens to be a Muslim.

Whenever I play something, everybody just thinks that's who I am.

I'm such a girly-girl! I don't know why people don't see that.

People who don't know me look at my world as something very hard-core, and I don't feel it that way. It's not what attracts me.

It's funny; I'm in some ways hopelessly masculine, but I don't fish, I don't hunt, I'm not that into sports. I can't fix a car. I think it's my point of view and the way I see the world.

I don't like labels. I don't understand the need for them. When you define yourself a certain way, people have expectations.

You can talk about what you see from the outside; it's hard to tell me who I am when you're just looking at me with a football uniform on. That's a totally different person. That's my job, that's it.

For one thing I tend not to see myself in various moulds that people fit me into.

If I try and be something I am not, if I try and be cool, and I am not, I am a boring white man in a suit. Usually a pin-striped suit.

I think people are a little surprised sometimes at the level on which I actually talk. I don't talk like Caine. And every once in a while, somebody is surprised because I smoke and I drink. But I don't feel that is a contradiction.

It's superficial that people think I'm cool because I wear certain clothes and I have tattoos. The funniest part is, when they get to know me, they're always surprised by how nerdy I am.

I tell people all the time, 'Don't be fooled, because I am a man by day.'

I just don't want to give anybody a reason to label me as something I'm not.

I'm not a dumb idiot just because of what I wear.

As women, we're always in negotiation with how we're being perceived versus how we feel.

I think in some ways we have allowed other people to set the agenda. Other people to define who we are.

It's been helpful to have so many opportunities to look different so people stop pigeonholing you.

I don't believe we have a professional self from Mondays through Fridays and a real self for the rest of the time.

I understand people have preconceived notions of who I am or what I do. But I do find it a bit bizarre that people find it bizarre that I've grown up.