{"id":231434,"date":"2025-07-02T07:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/231434\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T07:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:38:10","slug":"idris-elba-has-never-watched-the-wire-and-never-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/231434\/","title":{"rendered":"Idris Elba has never watched The Wire and never will"},"content":{"rendered":"

Widely regarded as one of the greatest TV shows of all time, The Wire<\/a> has earned near-universal acclaim, but one of its biggest stars has never seen it. During a conversation with Amy Poehler on the Good Hang<\/a> podcast, Idris Elba revealed that he\u2019s never watched The Wire and has no plans to change that. Elba played Russell \u201cStringer\u201d Bell, one of the show\u2019s most popular characters. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m really honest, I didn\u2019t watch The Wire,\u201d Elba said. \u201cI didn\u2019t watch it. And I feel bad. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m not a fan of it \u2014 I was there. I made a show that was, you know, so intense and so real, so important, even though we didn\u2019t realize it. I didn\u2019t realize the importance of the show while making it. I didn\u2019t participate in its celebration as a viewer, as a fan. And so I feel a little bit outside of the club.\u201c<\/p>\n

Related
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\n Heads of State interview: John Cena, Idris Elba, Jack Quaid, and Ilya Naishuller on their new action comedy <\/a><\/p>\n

When Poehler tried to encourage Elba to give the show a watch, he refused. And it\u2019s not because he doesn\u2019t like watching himself onscreen, at least not entirely. \u201cIt\u2019s more that I feel the presence of it all, my life since The Wire\u2026 In terms of its impact,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo to me, it was almost a bit like I was Stringer Bell. I\u2019m not Stringer Bell, but I also feel like when Stringer Bell died, there was a part of me that died with that character. It\u2019s weird for me to go back and watch it. I like being in it rather than watching it.\u201c<\/p>\n

Elba will soon be seen starring alongside John Cena in Heads of State. The action-comedy follows the UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Elba) and U.S. President Will Derringer (Cena), who have a not-so-friendly and very public rivalry that jeopardizes their countries\u2019 \u201cspecial relationship.\u201d But when they become the targets of a powerful and ruthless foreign adversary\u2014who proves more than a match for the two leaders\u2019 security forces\u2014they are begrudgingly forced to rely on the only two people they can trust: each other. The show will debut on Prime Video on July 2<\/strong>, and you can check out a review from our own Tyler Nichols right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I feel like Elba has invited chaos by admitting this, you know the type: \u201cWait\u2026 you\u2019ve never seen The Wire?! Dude, it\u2019s literally the best show ever made. What\u2019s wrong with you?!\u201d I love the series, but I understand why it may not be for everyone.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Widely regarded as one of the greatest TV shows of all time, The Wire has earned near-universal acclaim,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,39195,90892,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-231434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-idris-elba","11":"tag-the-wire","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114782503203616390","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}