Idris Elba: ‘Acting is my therapy’

Idris Elba reveals his personal life falls to pieces when he is not working as an actor.
Hinting at issues that may have contributed to his recent split from girlfriend Naiyana Garth, the mother of his two-year-old son Winston, Idris blamed his poor romantic track record on his downtime from acting.
The Luther star spoke about how acting was like “therapy” in an interview which touched on his private life, and the push for him to be cast as Bond.
“Therapy is a good way to cleanse my… When I’m not acting is when my life falls to s**t. It’s really interesting,” the 43-year-old tells the May (16) edition of Esquire Magazine.
“I’m going through this b**llocks now ’cos I’m not on a film set. Had I been on a set I wouldn’t even have noticed. Probably,” he muses. The actor’s relationship imploded soon after he was seen out partying in New York with Naomi Campbell. He and Naiyana split days later.
Idris has since been keeping busy, landing roles in Star Trek Beyond and the live action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic The Jungle Book as Shere Khan. He is also the voice of sea lion Fluke in the sequel to 2003 animated movie Finding Nemo, Finding Dory.
The London-born actor rose to stardom globally as drug lord and aspiring businessman Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell in HBO’s seminal series The Wire.
On Wednesday (30Mar16) he was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for the first time for his role as Detective John Luther in BBC crime drama Luther.
The 43-year-old actor has been at the centre of a debate surrounding casting the first black James Bond, but he says although he has met Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, they have never discussed the role.
“I have met Barbara Broccoli a bunch of times and she’s lovely but we didn’t talk about Bond, ” he admits. “She’s got a Bond. She doesn’t talk about others while she’s got a Bond.”