Actor Idris Elba stepped foot in Baltimore for the first time after he was cast in The Wire. But when he first arrived in the city, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
What Idris Elba liked about Baltimore
Elba was alredy familiar with living in America by the time he was cast as The Wire’s Stringer Bell. He’d lived in New York City for four years where he had a difficult time getting stable work as an actor. Being cast as drug dealer and business man Stringer Bell gave the actor a stable income and noticeable attention in the film industry. But being on The Wire also introduced Elba to another side of the country he hadn’t experienced before. The Wire would be the first time Elba visited Baltimore, which was a new world compared to New York.
“Well, you know, I was a sort of New York resident and New Jersey resident for a long time,” Elba once told Groucho Reviews. “And, you know, I didn’t really…much get outside of that world. The tri-state was where I knew, you know? And then when I had gotten the job, and I had gotten on that train that leaves Penn Station and takes you down to Baltimore, I remember sitting on this train and watching the world go by and going past Pennsylvania and goin’ past Philly and going, ‘Hmm. Interesting.’”
Elba remembered Baltimore not being entirely what he expected when he got there.
“And then getting to Baltimore, which, you know-the train station is quite a small, old building,” he said. “I was like, ‘Wow. Okay. Okay, and this is about drug crime?’ I just couldn’t work it out. I was like, ‘What am I doing here?’ Baltimore’s quite an interesting city, in terms of-it’s like Disneyland., you know, you’ve got the Inner Harbor, which is sort of beautiful and gorgeous, and just behind in the harbor is where people are actually working.”
But the other half of Baltimore was a place where people weren’t working.
“And dying. Or very poor, or just a real existence, and I was like taken back by that. There’s no doubt. But Baltimore, you know, accepted me, and I accepted it,” he said. “And I lived there for pretty much the good part of three years.”
Idris Elba initially wanted to keep his natural accent in ‘The Wire’
Elba famously had to switch his natural English-bred accent to play Stringer Bell. This required a more American, Baltimore accent that took some time to perfect.
But as much acclaim as Elba might’ve gotten from the role, he admittedly wanted to tweak certain aspects of the character. In his resurfaced interview with The New York Times, it was noted that he pitched to keep his natural accent for the show. He wanted to do something experimental with Stringer and take the drug lord role in a new direction.
“I had this idea to take this character to the left and make him eccentric and refreshing,” he said. “I haven’t had the chance to do that yet.”
Elba didn’t get the opportunity to do exactly what he wanted with Stringer Bell. But his performance helped cement Stringer as one of the most iconic characters in television, anyway. So much so that he considered his early departure from the show a catch-22.
“It was a gift and a curse,” he said. “I died on that show at a time where people were interested in my character. If Tony Soprano had died in the fourth season, James Gandolfini would be a bigger actor than he is now,” Elba added.
