My night in a haunted Robben Island cell by Mandela Star Elba
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Idris Elba plays the title role in Mandela: A Long Walk to Freedom which will reach cinemas in JanuaryActor Idris Elba spent a night on Robben Island, locked in a cell next to the one where Nelson Mandela was jailed for 18 years.
The star portrays the great South African leader in the film Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, and Elba’s self-inflicted imprisonment was part of his own extended journey into the life of the former freedom fighter.
‘I wanted the audience to know what it was like once Mandela and his colleagues were jailed and the crowds dissipated,’ Elba told me during an interview in Toronto.
The actor travelled around South Africa researching the role and wrote to the authorities on Robben Island (now a heritage site) to ask if he could stay in the jail. Initially, they turned him down, but later they recanted.
‘Look, we turn the key and you’ll be here till we let you out again at eight in the morning,’ a security man told him.
‘It was a s***hole,’ Elba said. ‘I had a thin blanket for a mattress and that’s all there was between me and the concrete floor. They gave me a bowl. I had no water, nothing to drink at all. I was wearing my sweats and whatnot. I had two iPads to document myself and a cell phone.
‘Mr Mandela spent 18 years in the cell next to mine. It was a tiny room; the man turned the key and as I saw him walk away, it was plunged into darkness.
‘Before he went, he gave me a number to call if I wanted to be released. Later I checked my phone, but there was no signal. I was there for the whole night, whether I liked it or not. I slept for about an hour in total. There were ghosts there — of course there were! — because people had died there. I woke in the night and a massive cold thing hit my face, almost like cold water . . . it was obviously a spirit.
‘The wind made the cell bars make this ringing sound that echoed throughout the building. They clanged all night. I was on my own, but I wasn’t alone.
‘Later, every time I did the cell scenes in the film, I thought of that night. It wasn’t pretend for me.’
Elba, best known as Stringer Bell in The Wire and John Luther in the BBC police drama Luther, doesn’t look anything like Nelson Mandela, though he does sound uncannily like him in the film.
For a long while the producer Anant Singh, director Justin Chadwick and executives from BBC Films were after Denzel Washington for the role.
But the part landed in Elba’s lap and in one of the most searing performances on screen this year he becomes Mandela.
Nelson Mandela is pictured (left) in the prison yard at Robben Island where he was imprisoned for 18 years
‘You’re right,’ Elba told me. ‘I don’t look anything like him, and to do a mere impersonation of Mr Mandela would have been an embarrassment — an abomination.’
Elba read and studied everything he could about Mandela, who spent 27 years as a political prisoner. He focused on his subject the way his favourite star Meryl Streep does when she’s preparing for roles. ‘She disappears into a part, and buries Meryl,’ he explained.
Once he understood Mandela’s characteristics, he found they were familiar to him. ‘My dad and my uncles were similar, so I thought I’d channel them,’ he said.
His father arrived in England from Sierra Leone. He studied marketing, then got a manual job at the Ford Motor Company.
By this time his wife had joined him and, 41 years ago, Elba was born. Elba’s father became a shop steward at Ford. He was a gifted orator and studied labour cases like a lawyer. ‘From the time I could listen, I’d hear my dad coming home with his files and saying: “Well, I told them this time!”
‘My mum was concerned about him getting fired. “No, they can’t be treating us like that!” he’d respond.
It was all about being able to speak your mind and connect with other human beings, to induce some kind of change. That was some of the essence I put into portraying Mr Mandela.’
Mandela’s plight was often discussed in the Elba household in Forest Gate, East London, and Idris vividly recalls the day in 1990 when the great man was finally released. The actor showed his father the film and his father cried.
‘My dad doesn’t weep,’ Idris said. ‘I think he wept because we followed Mr Mandela so closely.’
I’m sure that’s true. But having seen the film myself last weekend, I reckon his father’s tears were also for the towering piece of acting his son delivers.
Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom opens in the UK on January 3.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2419591/My-night-haunted-Robben-Island-cell-Mandela-Star-Elba.html#ixzz2eotWRVA6
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