Idris Elba is recalling how he prepared to play Nelson Mandela in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
“In 2013, when I was preparing to play Nelson Mandela in the film Long Walk to Freedom, I spent the night in a prison cell on Robben Island, 12 km outside Cape Town, where Mandela was imprisoned from 1964 to 1982,” Elba, 52, wrote in a Sunday, January 26, article for The Sunday Times.
He continued, “I’d been given the incredible honour to portray this great man and up until that night, I hadn’t quite grasped the significance of having over 20 years of life stolen from him. I had to persuade the authorities to let me stay there, and they finally agreed.”
Elba explained that the place “holds a lot of bad memories” and is “definitely haunted,” adding that he “heard strange noises throughout the night” even though he was “the only person there.”
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“I had a bucket, a thin mattress and a blanket; they kept the lights on because that’s what they used to do and I didn’t sleep much,” Elba recalled. “It was a scary experience, but it definitely gave me a stronger connection to Mandela.”
The biopic chronicled Mandela’s life journey, including spending 27 years in prison before serving as the first Black president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.
Mandela died in 2013 at the age of 95. The news of his death was formally announced when the credits rolled during the London premiere of Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. The entire auditorium held a two-minute moment of silence at the end of the film. After the screening, the audience applauded and gave a standing ovation.
When the movie was released in 2013, Elba recalled being nervous to show the film to a South African audience.
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“In South Africa, they were very silent and I wondered what that was about,” he recalled, per Variety. “I thought maybe they didn’t like it, but they were just absorbing. You’ve got to remember, the whole freedom struggle in South Africa is about 25 years old. When we got there, the reaction was real.”
Producer Anant Singh also showed a scene of the movie to Mandela and shared his reaction to seeing Elba. “He saw Idris Elba as the old Mandela in the Mandela prosthetics and he says, ‘Is that me?’” he said, per the outlet. “And it was very cute and he smiled and laughed, so it was very good.”
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