Idris Elba and Naomie Harris talked about how they prepared for their roles in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
The two stars sat down for an interview with Nightline where they talked about the recently released film and Elba said he was "humbled" to play the role.
The Pacific Rim actor said, "We were given the task to go ahead and make that as real as possible on screen, being a ladies' man and being a man who was not humble, a very ambitious, almost egotistical man." He added that few knew Mandela was "in quite messy relationships as a young man."
Harris spoke about playing the controversial figure of Winnie Mandela. "I'm never interested in whether the character is liked or loved or hated ... what I'm interested in [is more] of motivations and emotional truth." The Skyfall actress continued, "Good people do very bad things and bad people do very good things, and it was my job to find the complexity in all that."
Elba had authorities at the notorious Robben Island lock him up so it would help the actor prepare to play Mandela, reports Daily Mail. He stayed in the prison for 12 hours.
The officials didn't want to let him stay there, but Elba said, "But I persisted, it was important. So they took me to one of the punishment cells." He noted that the cell was similar in size to the one Mandela stayed in when he was locked up.
"Spending the night in there gave me a little taste of what it was like to be locked up in Robben Island for all those years." Elba added, "And it's funny, because of insurance they insisted that I take a phone in case I needed to get out."
image: The Weinstein Company
