*As part of his media tour to promote “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,” Idris Elba chopped it up with Sean Evans for First We Feast’s Hot Ones, and took a trip down memory lane to the time he was cast on HBO’s acclaimed series “The Wire.”
Elba played the iconic Stringer Bell on the show but he revealed to Sean that series creator David Simon was initially unaware of his British accent. Simon allegedly didn’t want non-American actors for a series cast in Baltimore.
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Big tune, big film. Loved making this with @cypresshill.. Shout out to @therock for supporting this! Out Now @HobbsAndShaw @7Wallace_ #HobbsAndShaw https://t.co/IYmmwPLCKS pic.twitter.com/hUXibA0iNS
— Idris Elba (@idriselba) July 26, 2019
“Alexa Fogel was a casting director that was really into seeing new talent,” Elba tells Sean. “She said ‘I love you, I gotta bring you into this audition, but you have to promise that you can’t tell him you’re from East London.'”
He says Fogel told him to speak in an American accent for the audition. But explains that they “changed the tactic” on him when the fourth audition came around, asking about his personal life.
“My parents told me not to lie—you gotta look someone in the eye and be honest,” Elba says. That’s when he came clean about being from East London.
“Don’t fire Alexa, she told me not to tell you guys,” Elba says West then shouted “I knew it” and ended up giving him the role of Stringer Bell.
Scroll up and watch Idris take on the wings of death and discusses everything from UK hip-hop legends, to Cockney rhyming slang, to the biggest slapper in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats.”
“Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” hits theaters on Aug. 2.
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