Idris Elba is planning on moving to Africa at some point within the next decade as the actor has some big plans for another step in his career.
He’s starred on big screen, the small screen and inexplicably been defeated multiple times by Jeremy Clarkson in the race to be the UK’s sexiest man, but now Elba has something new planned.
He’s been keeping busy and has a lot of irons in fires what with his work on series like Hijack, Knuckles and films such as Above the Below and Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
However, Elba recently told the BBC he wants to support Africa’s developing film industry and thus plans to move there ‘in the next five, 10 years’.
Speaking in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, he said: “I would certainly consider settling down here; not even consider, it’s going to happen.
Idris Elba has such plans that he can’t really pull off without moving to Africa. (Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images)
“I’m here to bolster the film industry – that is a 10-year process – I won’t be able to do that from overseas. I need to be in-country, on the continent.
“I’m going to live in Accra, I’m going to live in Freetown, I’m going to live in Zanzibar. I’m going to try and go where they’re telling stories – that’s really important.”
He’s planning to set up film studios in various locations around the continent, with the BBC reporting earlier this year that Elba had been allocated land in Zanzibar to launch a studio.
The actor also has plans for a studio in Ghana as well, having last year said that he’d been working on the idea ‘for three or four years’, and would also like to build a ‘smart city’ on an island off the coast of Sierra Leone, having already secured a partnership with Octopus Energy to build wind turbines and solar panels for it.
He’s already got the green light to develop a film studio in Zanzibar. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
With so many projects to work on it’s understandable that he can’t really do it from such a long distance away.
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, does have a significant film industry which has been dubbed ‘Nollywood’, but Elba’s plans for studios in other parts of the continent could be a major boost to the African film industry.
Here’s hoping the actor can still find the time to appear in some projects as it’d be a shame to see significantly less of him.
In recent years, the actor has also become a royal DJ after striking up a friendship with Prince Harry, who asked Elba to DJ his wedding, and recounted a moment where he had a gun pulled on him outside a nightclub.
Elba said he ‘nearly lost my f**king life’ when he tried to stop a man from ‘whaling on his missus’ and got a gun in his face for his trouble.