Idris Elba Reveals Why He Refuses to Watch The Wire: 'There Was a Part of Me That Died With That Character'

Idris Elba changeable to fame portion playing Stringer Bell successful The Wire, the realistic transgression play considered by immoderate to beryllium the champion TV bid of each time. But to this time the Marvel, DC, and Sonic the Hedgehog prima hasn’t watched it — and it sounds similar helium ne'er will.

But why? You’d deliberation Elba would beryllium arrogant to ticker The Wire, fixed its captious acclaim (and that awesome American accent that adjacent had the show’s producers fooled for a while). In a caller interrogation with Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, the British prima insisted helium was arrogant of the show, but inactive couldn’t bring himself to ticker it, admitting: "I consciousness a small spot extracurricular the club."

Idris Elba inactive hasn't watched The Wire. Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images.

"If I'm truly honest, I didn't ticker The Wire," Elba said. "I didn't ticker it. And I consciousness bad. It's not that I'm not a instrumentality of it — I was there. I made a amusement that was, you know, truthful aggravated and truthful real, truthful important, adjacent though we didn't recognize — I didn't recognize — the value of the amusement portion making it."

Elba continued: "I didn't enactment successful its solemnisation arsenic a viewer, arsenic a fan. And truthful I consciousness a small spot extracurricular of the club."

Elba past said helium won’t ticker The Wire and can't adjacent observe it, implicit 20 years later. "I felt the beingness of it, each my beingness since The Wire, successful presumption of its impact," helium explained. "And I besides was determination making it. So to me, it was astir a spot similar I was Stringer Bell. I'm not Stringer Bell, but I besides consciousness similar erstwhile Stringer Bell died, determination was a portion of maine that died with that character. It's weird for maine to spell backmost and ticker it."

"I don't similar being overly conscious of what my show is like, due to the fact that it makes maine conscious astir doing it," Elba concluded. "I similar being successful it alternatively than watching it."

While Idris Elba can’t bring himself to ticker The Wire, which ran from 2002 to 2004, his vocation skyrocketed disconnected the backmost of his show successful it. He went connected to play Heimdall successful Kenneth Branagh's movie Thor (2011), and reprised the relation successful consequent MCU movies. He made the power to the DC Universe by playing Bloodsport successful James Gunn's The Suicide Squad (2021). And much recently, Elba has played Knuckles successful the blockbuster Sonic the Hedgehog films.

Elba has plentifulness coming up, too, including the relation of Duncan, Man-At-Arms successful Amazon Prime's He-Man movie Masters Of The Universe.

Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].