Idris Elba has received tons of praise for his BBC psychological crime drama “Luther,” which ran for five years, but according to one critic, the show wasn’t Black enough. BBC diversity chief Miranda Wayland spoke on the award-winning series at the digital MIPTV conference on Monday, April 13, and told the crowd that her primary issue with “Luther” was that it wasn’t authentic in her opinion.
“When [‘Luther’] first came out everybody loved the fact that Idris Elba was in there — a really strong, Black character lead. We all fell in love with him. Who didn’t, right? But after you got into about the second series you got kind of like, ‘OK, he doesn’t have any Black friends, he doesn’t eat any Caribbean food, this doesn’t feel authentic,” stated Wayland.
The television executive further expressed that she’s happy seeing more Blacks on television, but that the culture has to be showcased as well.
“It’s great having those big landmark shows with those key characters, but it’s about making sure everything around them, their environment, their culture, the set is absolutely reflective. It will be very much about how can we make sure that this program is authentic in terms of the storytelling,” she added.
Elba, who’s currently starring in his latest film Concrete Cowboy on Netflix, doesn’t seem fazed by the comments and is currently looking to bring the detective series to the big screen. “The Luther film is definitely coming, I’m very excited about that. For the fans that have watched five seasons of Luther, I owe it to them to take it to the next level, and that’s where the film comes in,” Elba told Capital XTRA.
Elba also announced that he’ll be starring in the supervillain film, The Suicide Squad, which is scheduled to hit theaters on Aug. 6. Check out Elba’s interview with Capital XTRA on the following page.
