Page 61 - Powerlist 2020

Idris Elba
Actor

A-list actor, director, producer, record-breaker, royal Media, Publishing & Entertainment
wedding guest – and DJ – Idris Elba is the man with the
Midas touch.
His movie hits include Avengers: Infinity War, one of the
highest-grossing films of all time, the sci-fi western Dark
Tower, and The Mountain Between Us. In 2018, he made
his directorial debut with Yardie, based on the book of the
same name by Victor Headley. As of May 2019, his films have
grossed over $9.8 billion at the box office globally. He is
among the top 20 highest-grossing actors in Hollywood.
His TV career continues to go from strength to strength
with a Netflix comedy series, Turn Up Charlie, and what is
rumoured to be the last season of Luther. His performance
in the role has scored him a clutch of awards, including the
Golden Globe for best actor and a Screen Actors Guild Award
for outstanding performance.
He also appeared in the Sky Atlantic TV series Guerrilla,
about the Black Power movement in 1970s London. During
filming, Idris made sure there were roles in front of and
behind the camera for black and ethnic-minority talent.
Always sharply-dressed, Idris launched his own fashion
Gary Younge brand 2HR SET in 2019. Inspired by his passion for DJing, the
Journalist; Author label is targeted at the young club scene.
The play Tree, developed from his album mi Mandela,
Author, broadcaster and editor-at-large for The Guardian, and co-created with Kwame Kwei-Armah, premiered at the
Gary also writes a monthly column, Beneath the Radar, for Manchester International Festival in 2019.
The Nation magazine and is an Alfred Knobler Fellow for He has been vocal against gang violence and added his
The Nation Institute. weight to the campaign against knife crime with his slogan,
He has written five critically-acclaimed books, including “Don’t Stab Your Future”.
the multi award-winning Another Day in the Death of Idris’s influence is immense and continues to grow.
America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives; The Speech: The His inspirational videos often go viral and are loved by his
Story Behind Martin Luther King’s Dream; and No Place Like 4.5 million Instagram followers.
Home: A Black Briton’s Journey Through the Deep South.
He has made numerous radio and TV documentaries on
subjects ranging from gay marriage to Brexit.
Born in Hertfordshire to Barbadian parents, Gary grew
up in Stevenage until he was 17, when he went to the Sudan
with Project Trust to teach English in an Eritrean refugee
school. On his return he studied for a French and Russian
degree and was awarded a bursary from The Guardian to
study journalism at City University. He started working at
The Guardian in 1993. In 1996 he was awarded the Laurence
Stern Fellowship, which sends a young British journalist to
work at The Washington Post for three months.
Gary was appointed The Guardian’s US correspondent in
2003, returning to the London office in 2015.
In 2018, he won (Broadsheet) Feature Writer of the year
at the Society of Editors Press Awards for a year-long series
on knife crime. He also won Feature of the Year at the
Amnesty Media Awards for an article in the same series.
The Comment Awards have recognised him twice, awarding
him Comment Piece of the Year in 2016 and Society and
Diversity Commentator of the Year in 2018. He picked up
the David Nyhan Prize for political journalism in 2015 and
for three years from 2001 to 2003 he won Best Newspaper
Journalist in Britain’s Ethnic Minority Media Awards.
He withdrew from the Editorial Intelligence UK Comment
Awards in protest at the inclusion of two Times journalists.
He is a visiting professor at London South Bank University.

powerful-media.com 61