Idris Elba doesn't feel comfortable being labelled a hero or a role model.
The Wire actor, who was officially knighted by King Charles III in June, admitted to British GQ that he struggles with the responsibility and pressure of being considered a perfect role model.
"I'm just an actor that has got all these ambitions," he insisted. "I struggle with it, a little bit. The responsibility, accepting it, like, Yes! I'm an upstanding hero! I'm a role model! I'm not. I'm imperfect, massively."
"That line, that cusp, is hard to maintain: you're either a hero, or you're not - which is it? And I sort of sit in the middle," he continued. "I didn't ever chase being a knight. Or chase being a sort of public hero - that's not what I'm chasing."
The British actor was made a knight in recognition of his services to young people, including his campaigns against knife crime.
He also fronted the 2025 documentary, Our Knife Crime Crisis, and runs the Elba Hope Foundation, an organisation focused on education, youth advocacy, community empowerment and sustainable development initiatives.
Last year, Elba also teamed up with King Charles on a documentary about The Prince's Trust, now known as The King's Trust, as he received a grant from the charity as a teenager. The documentary is set to air on Netflix this autumn.
The Luther star told the publication that he "just found himself front and centre" speaking up about knife crime because he felt "so hopeless" listening to news reports of more and more fatalities on U.K. streets.
"I just thought to myself, Well, I get to stand on a soapbox on Graham Norton all day and talk about stuff, wear a T-shirt and everyone wants to buy it, whatever it is, and like, I should be saying something," he explained. "I've got kids. If anything happened to my kids I'd be f**king devastated. So that was it. It wasn't like 'Oh I want to campaign.' It was, 'Is no one gonna say anything?'"
