Idris Elba calls out ‘unintelligent’ debate on Black British actors taking American roles
Idris Elba recently talked about the debate over Black British actors taking American roles and revealed that it was an unintelligent argument. Read further.
Idris Elba is among the popular English actors and musicians who have garnered a massive fanbase over the years. While the actor is currently gearing up for the release of his upcoming thriller miniseries titled Hijack, he recently talked about Samuel L. Jackson’s comment in 2017 about black British actors taking away the roles of American actors that created a buzz online and stated that it was an unintelligent argument.
Idris Elba talks about Samuel L. Jackson’s alleged racist comment
According to an interview on The Shop via The Root, Idris Elba addressed the comment Samuel L Jackson made in 2017 about Daniel Kaluuya’s casting in Get Out when Jackson stated, “I tend to wonder what that movie would have been with an American brother who really feels that.” While speaking about the same, Elba raised the question of whether being English makes one less Black. He even stated how it defined that it was an unintelligent argument. “You know what I noticed? You said Black women in America versus an English woman. Like being English makes you less Black? To me, that defines how unintelligent the argument is. No disrespect to anyone who has that feeling, it is what it is,” he stated.
Stating further, Idris Elba mentioned how it is annoying for him to see how no one debates when a Scottish actor plays an Irish character or an English actor but they point fingers among them. He added, “The fact is: we’re all Black. You get a Scottish actor playing an Irish character or an English actor — you don’t hear about a debate. But amongst ourselves we want to point fingers because we come from a conditioning that makes people just make sure ‘where’re you from?’ and ‘are you authentic from where you’re from? How Black are you?’ And it comes down to the caste system and it’s annoying to me, really annoying.”
Elba then went down memory lane and recalled how his grandfather fought the second World war for the US and added how he felt offended when someone told him that he wasn’t American. “My grandfather fought the second World War for this country, the U.S. [He] comes from Kansas City. I come to this country and someone says to me ‘you ain’t American’ and I’m like, ‘huh?’ How dare you. It’s acting. Cultural appropriation, no. That’s definitely something we should pay attention to. But in the acting profession, one should be allowed to play,” he revealed.
