Early Life
Elba, an only child, was born Idrissa Akuna Elba, and shortened his first name at school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting. His father, Winston, is Sierra Leonean and worked at a Ford factory, and his mother, Eve, is Ghanaian and had a clerical job. The two met in West Africa before moving to East London. Elba grew up in East Ham, and began helping an uncle with his wedding-DJ business in 1986, and within a year he had started his own DJ company with some of his best friends. Elba left school in 1988 and won a place in the National Youth Music Theatre, thanks to a £1,500 Prince’s Trust grant, but later ended up having to do everything from tyre-fitting to cold-call advertising sales to pay the rent between roles in Crimewatch murder reconstructions. Elba was working in nightclubs under the DJ nickname Big Driis in 1991, but began auditioning for television parts in his early twenties. After a stint in the National Youth Music Theatre, Elba worked the night shift at a Ford factory in Dagenham from 1989–90. Elba started his acting career while in secondary school with encouragement from his drama teacher.
Read more about this topic: Idris Elba
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)