Idris Elba taps into his own roots for directorial debut

Idris Elba

British actor Idris Elba said he tapped into his own roots growing up among London's West Indian community and his DJ experience for his directorial debut, Yardie, shown Thursday at the Berlin film festival.

The gangster movie is set in Jamaica in the 1970s and the London neighbourhood of Hackney in 1980s, where Elba grew up as the only child of west African parents.


"I was raised in east London and the central character, his journey isn't too dissimilar from most young black boys in England, whether they're from the West Indies or Africa," the star of TV's Luther and The Wire and blockbusters such as Thor: Ragnarok told reporters.

"So when it came across my desk as a script - I had read the book as a kid - it was definitely something that I knew I could relate to."

Yardie, slang for Jamaicans in general and Jamaican gangsters in particular, is based on a ground-breaking 1992 novel by Victor Headley about the black experience in Britain.

It tells the story of Jamaican boy D growing up in Kingston who saw his older brother, a DJ, shot dead when he was trying to make peace between rival gangs.

A decade later, in 1983, D is working for local drug lord King Fox, who has become a father figure.