Idris Elba: 'I worked like a robot after my father passed away'

Idris Elba threw himself into work after his father passed away, revealing he became like a "robot."

The Beasts of No Nation star's dad died in 2014 and to help him escape the grief Idris started working non-stop.

"I got to a place where I wasn't even living anymore," he tells Esquire magazine. "I was becoming a robot with my work. I have no fear of jumping out of burning cars or out of buildings on set, but in reality, I couldn't run one hundred meters. I just felt out of touch with reality."

However, getting and staying busy didn't help Elba get over his father's death, and he resorted to the lessons his dad had taught him.

"(He said), 'Fear nothing, do what you want to do, but be educated and intelligent and confident about it'," he says.

And his father's advice encouraged him to take chances with his career, which led to the series Idris Elba: No Limits and Idris Elba: Fighter, in which he put himself into fight-or-flight situations to test his survival skills.

"I had forgotten what it is to feel that burn on your tongue, when your adrenaline is going so much and you're in fight or flight," he adds. "I was like, 'I'll be tired when I'm dead...' I just thought, 'Yo, Dris, do you want to do something crazy? Should we just try to make a documentary?'"

"I could have been sitting in a comfortable place and earning the dough, going, 'I wish, I wish'," he continues. "But my way of being a popular male actor is to say, 'Dudes, if I can do it, you can f**king do it'."