Idris Elba Reveals How He Discovered His Role On ‘The Wire’ Was Ending
In a recent episode of What Now? with Trevor Noah on Spotify, Idris Elba reflected on his time on HBO hit series The Wire and shared when he knew his character was going to be killed off. “I didn’t know my character was gonna die until we got the episode. It was tough love,” said Elba.
He continued, “You usually get your scripts, you know, like two, three in a row, they write them. And I think the way I got it, I got episode seven. I was like, ‘Oh, um, episode seven. I got episode seven. Where’s eight? Can I get eight? What’s wrong?'”
He even touched on hiding his accent, “There’s one casting director, I talk about it all the time, Alexa Fogel. She would put me up for stuff and she said, ‘Hey, listen. This Wire thing’s come up. It’s called The Wire. It’s a pilot. They’re going to shoot it in January. But if you go in, you cannot let them know you aren’t American because they will not—I mean, this is about Baltimore. It’s very specific. They don’t want any strangers. I mean, please.'”
Who was your favorite character in The Wire?
