He's the ruthlessly ingenious drug lord?Stringer' Bell in The Wire, the obsessive Detective Chief Inspector in Luther, and the star of the long-awaited biopic of Nelson Mandela. Idris Elba inhabits each role as if he were born to play it, and approaches each performance as if it were his last. But what of the man himself? In this, the first biography of the onscreen legend, Nadia Cohen reveals Idris's life behind the lens, exploring just what it is that makes him so ambitious, adaptable and endlessly watchable. From humble beginnings, a second-generation immigrant born in.