As an actor that has to be featured in multiple fight scenes with people like Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, you’re definitely not going to want anything come up that would undermine your “manliness.” Much like the locker room behavior in high school, it appears that the set of ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ was subject to some good-natured teasing at the expense of Idris Elba due to his next project after the ‘Fast & Furious’ spin-off. You see, it’s not necessarily “cool” to follow-up some action-adventure spectacle with a feline-based musical.
Speaking to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, Idris Elba talked about working with the aforementioned actors and how they used to poke fun at him for taking one of the starring roles in the upcoming big-screen adaptation of the Broadway musical, “Cats.”
“When I was working on ‘Hobbs & Shaw,’ just after that, I went to work on ‘Cats,’” explained Elba. “So, I’m working with Dwayne [Johnson] and Jason [Statham], and as soon as they found out I was working on ‘Cats,’ we’re doing this big fight scene and I’m walking in all bravado, and they’d be like ‘Hey, Idris! So what you doing next?’”
He continued, “And the crew would be like, ‘uh, what are you doing next?’ And I’d be like [ embarrassed cough]’Cats.’”
Of course, the crowd at The Late Show laughed, and Elba is clearly in good spirits about the teasing he incurred on the ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ set.
Obviously, when you do something as macho as ‘Fast & Furious,’ you’re likely not going to be amped on explaining that your next feature is a musical about a young, anthropomorphic female feline that has to figure out how to get to cat heaven. Hey, at least the trailer wasn’t released at that time because we all know that Elba would have been teased even more mercilessly in that case.
‘Hobbs & Shaw’ is in theaters now and Elba’s next film, “Cats,’ will arrive on December 20.