Why Idris Elba chose comedy to tell his most personal story
10 Feb, 2021 06:00 AM
9 minutes to read
With In the Long Run, Idris Elba wanted to turn his parents hardships and integration into the UK into stories that were lighthearted, he said. Photo / Getty Images
New York Times
By: Salamishah Tillet
In the Long Run, a sweetly comic series set in 1980s London, is based on the real-life childhood of an actor best known for intense dramas like The Wire and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
In the Long Run, which wrapped up its third season last year, is a comedy based on actor Idris Elba s childhood in the Holly Street Estate, a racially diverse public housing community in the Hackney borough of London. Set in the fictionalised Eastbridge Estate in the early 80s, Elba, who created the series for Britain s Sky One, plays Walter Easmon, who, like Elba s actual father, Winston, immigrated to England from Sierra Leone and worked in a nearby American-owned car parts factory.
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