Idris Elba , in full Idrissa Akuna Elba (born September 6, 1972, London, England), British actor who was perhaps best known for his work on the television series The Wire and Luther.

Elba was born to immigrant working-class parents (his father was from Sierra Leone, and his mother was born in Ghana). He became interested in drama while attending school and was awarded a grant by the Prince’s Trust to join (1990) the National Youth Music Theatre. Beginning in his late teens, he worked as a disc jockey under the name DJ Big Driis (later Big Driis the Londoner) while auditioning for acting roles. From the mid-1990s he appeared often on British TV, his roles including recurring characters on Insiders (1997), Family Affairs (1997), and Dangerfield (1999).

Elba’s career break came on the HBO crime drama The Wire, in which for three seasons (2002–04) he played the financially savvy drug kingpin Russell (“Stringer”) Bell. He branched out into comedy on the American version of the sitcom The Office and into romance on the comedy-drama The Big C. Elba later earned critical acclaim as the complex antihero Detective Chief Inspector John Luther in the crime series Luther (2010–15). His interpretation of the brilliant but self-destructive Luther earned him a Golden Globe Award (2012) as well as three Emmy Award nominations and a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) nod. Elba’s later TV credits include the miniseries Guerrilla (2017), about radical activists in 1970s London.

During this time, the imposing 6-foot 3-inch (1.9-metres) Elba also appeared on the big screen, having made his feature film debut in Belle maman (1999; Beautiful Mother). He subsequently appeared in such movies as 28 Weeks Later (2007), American Gangster (2007), and Obsessed (2009). In 2011 he joined the Marvel Comics universe as the Norse deity Heimdall in Thor (2011), a role that he reprised in Thor 2: The Dark World (2013) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). The versatile actor earned critical acclaim for his moving portrayal of