PARTING SHOT
Illustration by BRITT SPENCER
“IT’S A CHARACTER THAT ALLOWS ME TO REALLY FLEX MY DRAMATIC wavelength,” Idris Elba says of John Luther, the detective he plays on the award-winning BBC America series. Luther returned for its highly anticipated fifth season in June. In the five-year hiatus between the filming of seasons four and five, Elba has taken on a number of different roles, but it’s the self-destructive and enticingly dark Luther that Elba finds the most electrifying. It could be because show runners don’t typically bestow actors of color with heroic policing roles as dynamic as Luther. Other than a few notable exceptions—such as the 1971 movie Shaft and the TV series New York Undercover, which aired from 1994 to 1999—cop dramas have typically been cast with white men at the helm, while women and men of varying races play supporting roles. With Luther, however, there is an obvious shift in Hollywood: The range people of color have always had is finally being showcased. Through Luther, Elba has won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for his work on the show. “It’s a sign of the times,” Elba explains