I Thought You Knew!!

Born Idrissa Akuna Elba in the impoverished East London borough of Hackney in 1972, Elba's mother is from Ghana and his father came to England from Sierra Leone in the 60s on a marketing scholarship.

Elba worked as a nightclub DJ before becoming an actor; his parents had managed to keep him "on the straight and narrow" despite growing up in a rough part of London "Africans," he said "we hold on to our youths and whip them into shape."