A few months ago, Idris Elba, the 33rd annual Sexiest Man Alive, was about to have some sex.
“I was trying not to ever bring this story up,” Elba says with a laugh, “but I was shooting in Limpopo, South Africa. My wife was there and we were going to have some fun in the shower. Some morning romance, you know? She got in, then I followed her and closed the door.
“But then I looked down, and clinging for life to the inside shower door handle was this bat. A tiny, wet bat. I hate bats. It was freaky as fuck. I jumped out of that shower so fast. My wife makes fun of me about it to this day: ‘You left me in the shower with a bat.’
“I’ve been telling her: ‘Babe, I just had to get out of there so I could get the bat for you!’ ”
Andrew Cotterill
Over the phone, Elba tells me he developed the chiroptophobia years before, while shooting a film in Australia.
“These big fruit bats would soar by the place I was staying every evening at around five. They were huge and long. Horrifying. Not like the one in the shower. That guy was tiny. But still.”
Turning 50 in September, Idris Elba has proven he’s got the chops to play any role—from a cutthroat drug kingpin’s lieutenant in The Wire to Nelson Mandela in Long Walk to Freedom to a commander of child soldiers in Beasts of No Nation. And, of course, the voice of Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. There isn’t a role Elba can’t do.
Except, maybe, play Batman.
KEEPING IT REAL
This month, Idris Elba has animal problems far bigger than a tiny, wet house bat. About 500 pounds bigger. His latest project, Beast, arrives in theaters on Aug. 19. In the thriller, a massive, marauding lion stalks Elba’s character, Dr. Nate Daniels, while he’s on a trip to a South African game reserve. Think Jaws on the savannah, or Cujo with a really, really big cat.