The Talks
Idris Elba: “The process is like a jigsaw puzzle”
Mr. Elba, you’ve played a diverse range of characters throughout your career, from The Wire’s Stringer Bell to Nelson Mandela in Long Walk to Freedom. How have you ensured such a broad range of roles?
Playing Stringer Bell put me on the map as an actor in America. I had worked in England and I had done decent work, but getting a role on The Wire expanded me into the US in a way that I couldn’t have hoped for! And after that, I continued to get better, bigger roles; I got to work with some really good people. So The Wire really shifted my career massively. But I should be adapting and trying different things, and I think throughout my career, I’ve dodged the bullet of, “Oh, you were great as this role, we would love to see you play that role again.” I have been offered roles that feel very similar to other work I’ve done, and I have definitely tried to avoid those. It can be difficult for my fanbase, they are always surprised! (Laughs) And whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I’m not sure.
I am pretty sure that’s a good thing…
At the moment, for me, it’s more about who is making the film, who is the storyteller, is it something that I have done before or not? Those are the decisions I make. I am really open, there’s no role that I wouldn’t consider, but at the same time, if I am working with a filmmaker, that is a long time to spend with someone, so I have to think about what I’m going to learn from that process.
“I think it’s so good to try new things and open the window and let some fresh air in and try to eliminate any regrets.”
“I don’t regret anything. I feel that I’ve made what I would call mistakes. But everything you do is a part of you. And you get something from it. The idea and excitement of being in these situations and places — they are more than just memories, they inform your life.”
“You better make every moment count. Live your life now; start in the morning. You mustn’t sit around waiting to die.”
“It’s been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to make the films I really dream of making. It’s heartbreaking when that happens, but it’s all okay. It requires patience.”
“Making something or creating something is about looking and exploring the potential, and I want to do that right up until the day of the performance. And then when we’re performing, I want to do it a bit more. There’s no reason we can’t.”
“Everybody is amazing at something — some people write music, some people are leaders, some people raise children, some people cook food. If you find what it is that you can offer to your fellow.”
“It all comes down to realizing how good you are and really consciously working with that. I think as an artist we always try to hide the imperfections. But the imperfections are there because we’re all humans, and this is what makes us interesting.”
“I think when you’re an artist who’s been around for a while like I have you understand that it’s almost impossible to make work that is unanimously loved or understood! You can’t please everyone, and that is a great realization.”
“Any kind of quest for achievement has some kind of a personal drive behind it. I'm sure some people would say that it's obviously about the ego, but on the other hand, it's not as if I'm competing against anybody. It's not as if I'm trying to outdo anybody. It's just me trying to do something to see if I can.”
“I think that when you’re a creator, you set out to create the perfect thing, but the idea of reaching that kind of creative nirvana — that’s something that you should never quite reach.”
“I can’t make people happy if I’m not happy myself. That applies to anyone who tries to achieve something in their life: if you’re not happy, you can’t transfer any happiness to anyone else.”
“The only thing that you have to be very sure of is that nothing can go wrong. You can’t get in the way of the whole thing by messing it up with great ideas or smart moves. Absolute trust is, I think, the crucial ingredient.”
“I have an irrational fear of boredom. That’s why I now have this tattoo that says “Carpe Diem.” That’s what we should live by!”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to stop wanting to see and experience things. I think the day that you don’t long for that anymore is the day you have kind of given up.”
“Just about anything is possible if you can find the map or the blueprint to get there. I think you’re only limited by your imagination.”
“Even though I wanted to be minimal, for the first 20 years in my career all I did was add things; more courses, more ingredients. Only three years ago I was confident to start focusing on removing, and this is when I finally created a dish where I felt like I achieved what I tried to do for 23 years.”
“Belief is very important. It’s like when you are riding a horse and you want it to go to the left, you look to the left first and then pull the horse’s head. As a human being it is the same thing: wherever you put your attention is probably where you are going to find yourself.”
“Art is something about everyday life. Art is about finding creativity in the normal gutter next to you. To see the potential in something where there is no potential is often where art or creativity is a great tool. It’s about making the impossible possible.”
“I have to free myself from my creation, I have to send it off, I have to give it up. And that is also the beauty, that you pass on something, that you let something live, that you allow it to confront. To get in contact with others.”
“In your life there’s a moment when the door opens and you need to walk through the door then. You can’t say then, “Well, I’ll go through it two years from now. I’ll do it, I’ll save up some money...” Because by then the door will be closed.”
“I really lacked confidence at the very beginning. At first I was quite intimidated! I wasn’t accepted in the kitchen initially, I wasn’t part of the system; the other chefs didn’t welcome me. But in the end, those experiences made all the difference. It freed me.”
“Failure is more interesting. Success only comes in one form. It doesn’t teach you anything. Failure kind of comes in all sorts of ways, and teaches you all sorts of things. You learn by failing.”
“I believe that you’re a result of the choices that you make. Each action has a reaction. Somehow it’s just all connected and I wouldn’t change any of it.”
“I don’t want to be good. I want to be the best. Even in failing that, you’ll hit a higher mark than if you never tried.”
“I think every person who is curious is more fascinating, and exploration is a big part of that. If you know everything in advance, if you're too self-confident, then everything will stop at some point.”
“It’s hard to watch the misses, it’s hard to be criticized. But you’re always trying to hit it into the rafters, and damn the consequences if you don’t make it.”
“I wouldn’t ever compromise on the essential, on the essence of a project, the ideas or the themes.”
“If you have to defend something that you like, it makes you to like it even more. My parents hated the comic strips, they hated rock ‘n’ roll, and when they found out what movies I was going to they also were against that. So everything I loved I had to defend.”
“We're not having to run from predatory animals like we did for hundreds of thousands of years before. So now we have to make up new activities to fulfill those emotional needs. There is a certain something about the ever-present danger of death that makes living so great.”
“If you work with somebody for a long time, you have to challenge them otherwise you jeopardize your relationship. You have to constantly reinterpret your work together and provide a new vision of your relationship.”
“I give my best performances when I am almost snapping. It is like tuning a violin. You want that note from a string so you tune it until it almost breaks – but then you get that note. It is dangerous, but it is also sublime.”
“I think you know when you’re playing it safe, when you’re stagnating, and when you’re growing. It’s probably an ongoing thing for all of us — and a tricky balance. I try to learn at least one thing on every album, to reach out. I become my own teacher.”
“In life it’s about opening yourself up. It’s about tapping into your instincts and your energies. I think I got very good at that. I have to be open and I have to be open to the possibilities.”
“Life is confounding and who knows what’s around the next corner. But in many ways uncertainty can be exhilarating—there’s a lot of freedom in it. It would be a shame to waste our snippet of time on this planet being afraid.”
“I think as you are growing up, deciding what you want to do is really the process of elimination rather than gravitating towards something until you land on what really makes you happy.”
“The recognition of luck is extraordinarily important — as well as making the best of it and creating to the best of your capabilities on that one opportunity you’re given so that it doesn’t end up in the museum of errors.”
“I feel very lucky. There is luck behind me, there’s luck in front of me, there’s luck ahead of me. But that is a perspective that requires a lot of work. It doesn’t come naturally.”
“I think the best you can do for yourself is let your subconscious drive you, instead of doing things because you want to achieve some sort of glory.”
“I like the accidents, the things that happen by chance. I let the life come to the picture and the creativity flow.”
“I’ve been through some incredibly tough times in my career but I persevered and came out the other side. And that teaches you strength, how to handle being put under pressure. Experience is a big thing — just knowing that you can pull yourself back up again.”
David Newman: “You’re bonded to it”
Mr. Newman, as a film composer, your philosophy is that “the film itself is king.” What does that mean exactly?
The thing about film is that it’s organic during the making of it; it changes, things happen, but once it's done, once you're scoring it, it doesn't work with you. You have to work with it. You're collaborating with a medium and not with people. By the time you get to postproduction and editing, and its ready to be scored, you're simply trying to give it what it's asking for, you’re trying to provide what's helping the story. So the music is just a small part of it. It's a fascinating part of it, it's probably the least understood part of it — because music is really hard to understand anyway, even for musicians.
You were nominated for an Oscar for your soundtrack to Anastasia, and worked on over 100 films including Heathers, Ice Age, and Spielberg's West Side Story. Is it challenging to tell someone else’s story through your music?
Well, you have to follow the film, and generally, it's not that complicated. It's easy to see what doesn't work. We all understand stories, and the music needs to be in service of that story, otherwise, there's no point in putting in the music. Film isn’t even 100 years old, so before 1930, there was nothing like it. The people that started writing film music in the 1930s — my father Alfred Newman included, but also Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Dimitri Tiomkin — they were trying to figure out how you put music in a film when there's talking. The questions they were asking themselves: what is music doing? Why is it there? How much should it be there? Those are the same questions we are still asking ourselves as composers.
