Nelson Mandela recently celebrated his 95th birthday and now we have the first real look at Idris Elba playing him in Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom. We just saw Elba cancel the apocalypse in Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim (check out our review), playing the bad ass he’s used to playing, and now he’s pretty unrecognizable playing the iconic South African president. Whether he’s clearing a desk in BBC’s Luther, protecting the bifrost in Thor or duking it out with Kaiju in Pacific Rim, Elba continues to flex his acting muscles and this may be his finest work yet. Enjoy the first trailer from Yahoo…
The film is a chronicle of Nelson Mandela’s life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa. There’s a certain level of subtly and strength that Elba has and in this role it looks like he’ll again walk the line between the former and the latter as he, time and again, has done expertly. Only this time he might win the favor of the Academy for his efforts. We’ll see but right now, we’re in. Directed by Justin Chadwick and co-starring Naomie Harris, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom is slated for limited release this Fall on November 29th, 2013.
