Television is where I cut my teeth.

In some countries, no one knows who Idris Elba is.

It was deeply important for me to understand where Mandela came from. Because we know where he was going, and that's a famous story, but who was he? Where did he come from? What was his upbringing?

I wanted to be on American TV so much. I didn't park DJ'ing; I just sort of ended up becoming more of a studio guy. I had a bit more money and I could buy every little piece of equipment and drum machine that had just come out - I've got quite a collection now - and I continued to collect music.

Some directors hand over portions of their movie to their head of department to the point where it's like, "I'm not going to talk to you about the costumes, but I'm going to let you talk to the expert." Rather than, "You want to talk stitching, let's talk stitching. You want to talk grade of leather? Let's."

The long and short of it is that I am now in a position in England to green light movies, and that's really excellent - not high-budget movies, but movies none the less.

I was cast in 'Thor' and I'm cast as a Nordic god. If you know anything about the Nords, they don't look like me but there you go. I think that's a sign of the times for the future. I think we will see multi-level casting. I think we will see that, and I think that's good.