TORONTO, ON- SEPTEMBER 8 – Idris Elba with his date at the red carpet for the movie, “Molly’s Game” at the Winter Garden and Elgin Theatres during the Toronto International Film Festival featuring Aaron Sorkin, Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba in Toronto. September 8, 2017. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
  • Festivals

Idris Elba, Rocking Toronto (Twice)

September 10, 2017
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Luca Celada

Idris Elba hasn’t been wasting much time this year, packed with performances in  The Dark Tower, Thor: Ragnarok, The Mountain Between Us and Molly’s Game, the latter films both premiering back to back in Toronto.

In Molly’s Game, Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, he is defense lawyer to Jessica Chastain’s Molly Bloom (the film is the based on the life Olympic skier turned high stakes poker player). In The Mountain Between Us he survives a harrowing small plane crash in the Rockies with co-passenger Kate Winslet. The film was shot on location in the Canadian Rockies, where the two actors would be ferried to a high altitude camp to shoot their scenes, as Winslet told the HFPA on the second day of the festival. “We would fly up in a helicopter then Idris would come up and I would take the same chopper down. I barely had time to say ‘drink plenty of water. No one will be able to come and bring you food, have a great time love you lots’ and put candy in his pockets”

 

A double dose of Idris: with Jessica Chastain in Molly’s Game, and with Kate Winslet in The Mountain Between Us.

STX Films/Fox

 

“This movie is about survival but it’s also a love story, it’s about the survival of love”, adds Elba, who is also musician, avid sports aficionado and philanthropist (most recently partnering with Project Literacy to combat adult illiteracy). Both actors also share a Golden Globe history. Eleven-time nominee Winslet has won four Globes, most recently for her supporting role in Steve Jobs times while Elba, nominated six times, took the Globe for Best Actor in a Limited Series for Luther in 2012.

“I remember my name being called.” Elba recalled, “I remember Al Pacino, was also nominated, and being embarrassed. It was a massive achievement for me, my first  major award so thank you guys for giving it to me.”

“The Globes are an amazingly resilient award. One of our favorites, us actors – you are an interesting group of journalists known for bold choices. Like choosing Ricky Gervais, that was a bold move which had interesting results.”