Famed actor Idris Elba recently sat down with Complex and revealed his story behind asking NBA legend Michael Jordan face-to-face if he could portray him in a biopic. Mike had other plans though.
Idris told Complex, “So Jordan had these wicked getaways in the Bahamas, you know what I’m saying? He would invite a bunch of people out. I think me and Gabrielle Union went out, we was promoting a movie, I think it might have been Daddy’s Little Girls and you know, I was gassed to be at Jordan Weekend.”
Idris said he had the chance to speak with Jordan during Jordan weekend maybe “once or twice,” Elba added, “I even said to him one time, ‘I want to play you.’ He was like, ’Hm, I’m not ready yet.’… I was dead serious.”
“In my head, playing Jordan wouldn’t be about playing the basketball player, it was about the businessman. He is a very astute businessman, really smart. And his work as a philanthropist is unspoken, but people don’t understand the work. He cares, he does a lot of work. So that’s where I was hinting at. I wanna play Jordan, I’m doing that. He was like, ‘I’m not ready for that story yet.’”
Could You See Idris Elba As Michael Jordan?
Do you think Mike may feel he’s still too young for biopics? Although they’ve become quite popular these days, most biopics are told after the subject is deceased. Does Mike saying he ‘isn’t ready yet’ mean he will be sometime in the near future? Either way, it would be exciting to see which actor could possibly pull something like this off. Michael Jordan is as legendary as they come.
