Idris Elba: What You Don't Know About Him

Date of Birth	6 September 1972, Hackney, London, England, UK
Birth Name	Idrissa Akuna Elba
Nickname	DJ Big Driis
Height	6' 2¾" (1.9 m)

An only child  of African immigrants living in England. His father was from Sierra Leone and his mother was from Ghana, Idris Elba was born and raised in Hackney, London, England. His father, Winston, is from Sierra Leone and worked at a Ford motor factory. His mother, Eve, is from Ghana and had a clerical duty. Idris attended school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting. He gained a place in the National Youth Music Theatre - thanks to a £1,500 Prince's Trust grant. Currently he resides in New York City.

He worked as a disc jockey in nightclubs under the nickname DJ Big Driis at age 19. However, he began auditioning for television roles in his early twenties. He has starred in both British and American productions. The soap opera Family Affairs (1997) and the television serial Ultraviolet (1998) were his first acting roles. His best known roles are as drug baron Russell "Stringer" Bell on the HBO series The Wire (2002) and as DCI John Luther on the BBC One series Luther (2010). He also starred in the movies Daddy's Little Girls (2007), Prom Night (2008), RocknRolla (2008), The Unborn (2009) and Obsessed (2009). He also appeared in the films American Gangster (2007), Takers (2010), Thor (2011), Prometheus (2012), Pacific Rim (2013), and Thor: The Dark World (2013). Idris Elba also starred in Beast of No Nation (2015), The Jungle Book (2016) and a host of other movies. However, For his role in Beasts of No Nation, he's the first (and, as 2016, the only) winner of the SAG award for Best Supporting Actor in a motion picture not to receive an Oscar nomination for the same performance.

However, it may interest you to know that Idris Elba has no formal acting training. He is a father of two; Winston Elba from his first wife Hanne "Kim" Norgaard and Winston Elba from his girlfriend Sonya Nicole Hamlin. Idris Elba is a big time Arsenal Football Club fan since age 15 while is father is a  Manchester United Football Club supporter (interview on arsenal.com website February 2010).