While being linked with the top 007 job can’t be a particularly bad feeling, it seems Idris Elba is sick of talking about the ongoing speculation that he’s being lined up as the next James Bond.
“Honestly, it’s a rumor that’s really starting to eat itself,” the 42-year-old star of Luther and The Wire told the audience at London’s British Film Institute on Tuesday. “If there was ever any chance of me getting Bond, it’s gone.”
Elba also confirmed that talks with Bond producers have “never happened,” and blamed the man currently brandishing the license to kill for sparking the gossip.
“Daniel Craig actually set the rumor off. About four years ago he said Idris Elba would be a great Bond and then it started to creep,” he said. “I blame Daniel.”
Elba added that he had just finished shooting the fourth season of Luther, a two-part special due to air on BBC America later this year. He also added fuel to talk of a spinoff film, saying it would happen “hopefully.”
The actor was speaking at the world premiere of Mandela, My Dad and Me, a deeply personal self-produced documentary chronicling the recording of mi Mandela, the 2014 album inspired by his research and portrayal of the late South African statesman in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
Elba, who also DJs and admitted that he loves music “more than acting,” said that he decided to make the record — using musicians in South Africa and Mali — when his father, Winston, passed away in September 2013, shortly after he completed work on the biopic.
