Idris Elba Once Reflected on the ‘Luther’ Scene That Made Fans Threaten to Quit the Show
Actor Idris Elba has had to do some very intense scenes portraying detective John Luther on his titular show Luther. But there was one scene in the series so extreme that it even disturbed fans of the show.
Idris Elba once reflected on 1 of the most frightening scenes of ‘Luther’
Elba’s John Luther spends most of his time tracking down and detaining disturbed criminals. Because of this, the series has featured some pretty frightening characters over the years. The third season of Luther opened up with a harrowing situation involving an intruder, their hostage, and a bed. And it was a moment that left many viewers shaken. Speaking with BBC Newsbeat, the Beast star asserted that even he found the episode scary.
“A lot of people said that they wouldn’t watch Luther again,” Elba quipped. “And I think a few bed companies complained, like ‘we can’t sell beds with a gap underneath it’. We try to keep it exhilarating and keep people on the edge of their seats.”
But the very visceral reaction to the moment proved that the show did its job effectively.
“It’s very big TV. For us it feels like a film and that’s what we want. We want people to go ‘ooh, aargh, I don’t know what’s going to happen next’. That’s part of the DNA. But I am sorry to those who got scared, I didn’t mean that to happen,” he said.
Idris Elba decided to do ‘Luther’ after experiencing a very dark period in his life
John Luther wasn’t written with Elba in mind. Series creator Neil Cross actually didn’t think they had a shot at casting Elba in the series. Speaking with GQ, Cross revealed that he and his team didn’t start searching for actors until the show was nearing production. At that point, someone suggested to Cross to consider Elba.
“Production was beginning to ramp up and we still didn’t have a Luther. At that time, essentially everybody wanted to cast Idris in something, but we knew he was saying no to everything,” Cross said. “My colleague Katie Swinden said ‘let’s send the script to Idris’ and I was adamant it was a waste of time. We sent it him on a Wednesday…on the Saturday he phoned me and told me how powerfully he responded to the character.”
It turned out that The Wire alum was more than interested in the role. And the Luther opportunity couldn’t have come to him at a more appropriate time.
“I was really honoured to be the lead in something like that. I was living in America at the time, and I was keen to come home,” Elba said. “I just wanted something else. It was more about life choice than role choice. I wasn’t in a great place; I was in a dark place. It saved my life. It saved my sanity. I was having a midlife crisis but people in the UK were glad to have me back. It was great to shoot on the streets I grew up on, the road I went to school on in Hackney. It was mad to be filming by where I had my first KFC.”
Idris Elba achieved his goal of making a ‘Luther’ movie with ‘Fallen Sun’
Elba recently expanded on John Luther’s story with a movie. The feature The Fallen Sun hit theaters last year in 2023. Although Elba would be knee-deep in his career as the detective, the film was meant to be accessible to newer fans of the show, too. As far back as 2015, Elba hoped to make a Luther film.
“I would like to make it into a movie,” Elba once told The Guardian.
The Suicide Squad star has even shared there might be a possible sequel for The Fallen Sun, further exploring the franchise.
“All I can tell you is that we have got a story for the next one,” Elba recently told Kiss FM.
