Idris Elba

Idris Elba has been married to Canadian model and businesswoman Sabrina Dhowre since 2019. They became engaged during a screening of Yardie in East London in February 2018 and married in Marrakesh in April 2019.

He was previously married to Hanne "Kim" Nørgaard from 1999 to 2003 and to real estate lawyer Sonya Nicole Hamlin in 2006. He has two children, a daughter named Isan with Nørgaard and a son named Winston with makeup artist Naiyana Garth.

Elba became interested in acting while attending school in Canning Town and later gained a place at the National Youth Music Theatre through a £1,500 Prince's Trust grant. Before securing regular acting work, he supported himself with jobs including tyre fitting, cold-calling and night shifts at Ford Dagenham. He also worked as a nightclub DJ under the name Big Driis.

His early television roles included appearances in Bramwell, Dangerfield, Family Affairs, Ultraviolet and The Bill. His breakthrough came with the HBO crime drama The Wire, in which he played the financially astute drug kingpin Russell "Stringer" Bell from 2002 to 2004. He acted opposite Wood Harris, who played Avon Barksdale, Bell's longtime friend in the series.

Elba gained major acclaim as Detective Chief Inspector John Luther in the BBC crime series Luther, which ran from 2010 to 2019. The role earned him a Golden Globe Award and four Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He later reprised the character in the film Luther: The Fallen Sun.

His film work has included American Gangster, 28 Weeks Later, Prometheus, Pacific Rim, Star Trek Beyond, Molly's Game, The Dark Tower, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, The Suicide Squad, The Harder They Fall and Three Thousand Years of Longing. He portrayed Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and the Commandant in Beasts of No Nation, earning major award nominations for both performances. He played Heimdall in six Marvel films beginning with Thor and voiced Chief Bogo in Zootopia, Shere Khan in The Jungle Book, Fluke in Finding Dory and Knuckles in the Sonic the Hedgehog films.

Elba made his feature directing debut with Yardie in 2018. He also created and appeared in In the Long Run, a comedy series inspired by his childhood, and co-created and starred in the Netflix series Turn Up Charlie.

He played Bloodsport in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad and starred as Sam Nelson in the Apple TV+ thriller Hijack. His later screen roles included the United States president in A House of Dynamite, the British prime minister in Heads of State and Duncan, also known as Man-At-Arms, in Masters of the Universe. He has worked as a producer through Green Door Pictures and launched the production company 22Summers with Diene Petterle.

Elba has pursued music as a DJ, rapper and producer under the names DJ Big Driis and Idris. He released the EPs Big Man, Kings Among Kings, High Class Problems Vol. 1 and Idris Elba Presents Mi Mandela, and collaborated with artists including Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Wiley, Sean Paul, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney and Lime Cordiale. He launched the record label 7Wallace Music in 2018 and performed at Coachella in 2019.

He trained in kickboxing and competed in a professional bout against Lionel Graves at London's York Hall in 2016, winning by technical knockout. Elba has also campaigned against knife crime in the United Kingdom, addressed Parliament about diversity in screen entertainment and served as an anti-crime ambassador for the Prince's Trust. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2016 and knighted in the 2026 New Year Honours.