The director who gave Idris Elba a crash course in cinema excellence: “A work of art”
America loves to nick actors from the UK. Most American filmgoers probably have little idea that Anthony Hopkins hails from Wales, while Gary Oldman is such a chameleon these days that he probably doesn’t even remember he was born in London. More recent examples of this phenomenon can be found in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—Tom Holland, Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch and more—including the man who plays Heimdall, guardian of the Bifröst. This is, of course, the mighty Idris Elba.
Born in Hackney to parents from Sierra Leone and Ghana, Elba first broke into the US with his role as ruthless drug lord Stringer Bell in The Wire. Since then, his career has gone from strength to strength. Thanks to franchises like Sonic the Hedgehog, Star Trek, Fast and Furious, and the aforementioned MCU, he’s one of the highest-grossing actors on the planet, even if the quality of his movies isn’t always spectacular. Anyone remember The Dark Tower?
Outside of massive, explosion-filled seat-fillers, Elba has turned his talents to grittier affairs. On TV, he played the title character in the popular BBC detective series Luther. Elba once referred to the show as his “legacy project“, and it got its own movie, subtitled The Fallen Sun, in 2023. The previous year, he teamed up with director George Miller to make Three Thousand Years of Longing. Based on a short story by AS Byatt, the film stars Elba as a djinn who tells his life story to an academic, played by Tilda Swinton.
“George Miller sat down with us and articulated every single layer page by page,” Elba told The Talks of his experience working on the film. “The special effects, how the electromagnetic field will feel to the audience. There was artist’s drawings, and some really beautiful reference images which he put in the script and said, ‘This is what I am aiming for.’ That script, which I still have, is a work of art. Stepping into George’s world is very beautiful. He has a very vivid imagination!”
Given that one of the central characters is an all-powerful spirit with the ability to grant wishes, Miller’s mind was able to go to some pretty extreme places with this script. The djinn draws his powers from electromagnetism, which plays a crucial part in the film’s plot. Miller clearly knew that he had to get this idea across to the audience, which is why he spent so long thinking about it.
Miller is, of course, best known for his freewheeling Mad Max franchise. One only has to watch five seconds of any of those films to see that Elba wasn’t wrong when he spoke about the Australian’s imagination. Modified cars, flame-spewing guitars, ruthless wasteland leaders played by rock stars, women with shaved heads and mechanical arms—all this mad stuff came directly from the madman’s brain. Given that his other films include Babe: Pig in the City and the two Happy Feet movies, it’s clear that Miller’s mind is working on several levels simultaneously.
It’s important for actors to work with a variety of directors and vice-versa. Elba and Miller come from radically different worlds, so it was vital that they got the chance to learn from one another. Well, Elba certainly learned from Miller; it’s unclear if it worked the other way around.
