Idris Elba reveals plan to focus on music and ‘lean away’ from acting work
The actor has been making music for years, having performed at the Coachella music festival in 2019
Idris Elba fans, get ready for a new era. Elba, among other celebrities, is featured on this year’s Hollywood Issue of Vanity Fair. The acclaimed actor recently told the publication that he plans on fully leaning into his music career after decades of almost solely focusing on acting.
With films like Three Thousand Years of Longing, Beast and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Elba’s acting career certainly hasn’t slowed down. Yet, he revealed in the feature that he has his sights set on a different career altogether: one as a musician. In the candid interview, he made it very clear he is ready for whatever reception he may get from his fans and the public when the music is released, saying, “Some will love it and some will hate it.”
Elba already has had some pretty major collaborations with artists like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Lime Cordiale, a pop group. He even performed a DJ set at the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2019, but, as Vanity Fair reports, this has become much more than a hobby for Elba.
He explained, “Some may think, well, it will be the death of your acting if your music’s sh**. I’ve dealt with the internal struggle of that over the years. So now I’m at peace and I’ve chosen: This is what I’m doing and I’m going to do it. Some will love it and some will hate it.”
Elba continued to share that he plans to lean away from the acting work in the future. He added, “The thing about making music is it’s a very consuming process. It’s very difficult to shoot a movie and then go off into the studio or make a song. It’s like trying to build a soufflé while making a brick wall.”
This is not the first time that Elba has opened up about wanting a music career. Elba shared to Evening Standard in the U.K. in 2013, “This year, I’m not going to work as an actor and I’m going to put my mind into music. It’s a progression thing with me. I want to make music but I don’t want to shove it down people’s throats. People are just barely getting to know me as an actor. But I do it from the heart, I’m not doing it for money — I just enjoy doing it.”
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