Idris Elba Laughed at Chris Evans When He Freaked out Over This in ‘The Losers’
Chris Evans and Idris Elba teamed up for another comic book movie long before they worked in Marvel. While on set, Elba couldn’t believe the phobia his co-star had.
Why Idris Elba couldn’t stop laughing at Chris Evans on the set of ‘The Losers’
The Losers was Elba’s 2010 adaptation of the comic book of the same name. It saw the actor team up with Chris Evans and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as mercenaries on a dangerous mission. As one of the first comic book movies Elba starred in, he admitted he felt quite nervous doing the project.
“It’s a hard line to follow, because comic books are followed because of their, brilliance, and detail in their story line. You can live in this world and not share it with anyone else,” Elba once said according to Hey U Guys. “Ultimately there is an interpretation from the comic book to you, that you love, so when you try to turn that into a film where it has to satisfy everyone’s perception of the comic it’s tough. There is huge pressure to do that, especially with something like this, where you’re not relying on capes or flying around and special powers.”
While filming, Elba discovered a fear Evans had that he found amusing given the Captain America star’s size. Evans had an unwelcome guest inside of his trailer that apparently made the actor hysterical.
“I remember Chris Evans had a rat in his trailer. This is a man that is playing a soldier and he’s got muscles. This dude fell out because of this rat. It was crawling around the bed and s*** and this dude was freaking out. One of the guys that owned that trailer was like, ‘This is the rat?’ and picked it up with his bare hand [and] Chris screamed,” Elba once said in an interview with BET.
Elba shared he also freaked out.
“I freaked out because of the story. I was laughing so hard,” he said.
Why Idris Elba thought of Seth Rogen for ‘The Losers’
Elba wanted to make sure that he and Evans’ characters had authentic dialogue.
“What was open to interpretation was the way they spoke to each other. There’s great dialogue between each other. Chris Evans, who plays Jensen, he’s a very comical, funny guy and so is his character. Once we got together we worked on the script together on how we’d turn this dialogue and make it sound real,” he said.
Since they had a certain amount of creative control over their roles, The Wire star pulled inspiration from Seth Rogen films.
“It was important to us that we sound real,” Elba continued. “When you watch an Adam Sandler movie, and then you watch a Seth Rogen movie you realize that Adam Sandler has a very interesting slant on comedy. It’s not as realistic as the Seth Rogen stuff, and it’s starting to make Adam Sandler look a little dated. We wanted to do the same thing for this action film.”
Idris Elba thought ‘The Losers’ had an advantage over a very similar movie
In the same year The Losers came out, another film featuring a team of mercenaries also hit theaters. Unlike The Losers, however, the 2010 feature A-Team was based on a hit television show instead of a comic book. The A-Team would recruit its own roster of A-listers as well like Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper to round out its cast.
Elba was well aware of how similar the two movies were, but the actor believed The Losers had a slight edge. The Beast star believed the popularity of A-Team’s source material could work against the film.
“I honestly feel that our film is a little cooler, in a sense that it’s not a big-burger-brand. The Losers is relatively new to everyone. The A-Team has to live up to expectations. Those characters are iconic, so we’re going to watch that movie thinking, ‘You’re not Mr. T’. With The Losers, we don’t have that, even though I do have a Mohawk,” Elba explained.
Elba felt he and Evans’ dialogue would distinguish The Losers from The A-Team even further.
“Canned dialogue in The A-Team is probably the order of the day, because that’s how the A-team was. Our dialogue is going to be a little bit more snappy, less punch-line-y, more real. Funny, but dry. I think that represents what the comic does,” he said.
