{"id":246953,"date":"2026-01-16T00:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T00:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/246953\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T00:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T00:06:15","slug":"idris-elba-is-the-king-of-the-stress-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/246953\/","title":{"rendered":"Idris Elba is the king of the stress-watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Add the subway to the list of places Idris Elba\u2019s fans won\u2019t want to bump into him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeason 1, if I got onto a plane, people were like, \u2018Idris! Idris,\u2019\u201d the Hijack star\u00a0tells Yahoo. \u201c’Hmm. What are you doing here?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018Just flying to my destination,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

The nervous reactions stem from the debut season of the Apple TV+ series, which followed Elba\u2019s business negotiator character, Sam Nelson, as he deescalated a nail-biting hostage situation aboard a commercial flight. In its sophomore season \u2014 premiering on Jan. 14 \u2014 the action shifts underground to the Berlin U-Bahn, where commuters are taken hostage during rush hour.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not simply a case of here we go again. Sam\u2019s role on the train is far less straightforward than when he played the reluctant plane hero. Where he\u2019s been since that flight landed \u2014 and how he ends up inside the train\u2019s conductor control car \u2014 is a mystery the new season slowly unpacks.<\/p>\n

\"Idris<\/p>\n

Elba escapes a hijacked plane in London \u2014 only to face another crisis on a train in Berlin. (Apple TV)<\/p>\n

Elba \u2014 make that Sir Elba, as it was recently announced he’ll be receiving a knighthood<\/a> in his native United Kingdom \u2014 says his job was to map out what Sam has been through since viewers last saw him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all saw what happened in the plane, and at the end of the season, [he\u2019s] gone,\u201d says Elba, who also executive produces the series. \u201cEveryone’s like, \u2018Yo, what happened to him?\u2019 \u201cFor me, it was really trying to answer for the audience: Where has he been? What he’s been going through? Why is he on this train in Berlin?\u201d<\/p>\n

The wear and tear is visible immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s gone through some stuff,\u201d Elba says. \u201cHe’s gray. He\u2019s less manicured. I don\u2019t think he’s been doing the job where he needs to be presentable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between Hijack and some of his other recent projects \u2014 including the psychological crime thriller Luther, which is getting a movie sequel <\/a>on Netflix, and the 2025 disaster drama A House of Dynamite, in which he plays the U.S. president during a missile attack \u2014 Elba has become the king of the stress-watch. When we point it out, he laughs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have this massive library of what stressed people do,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Through what he describes as haptic acting, Elba leans into small, physical reactions audiences instinctively recognize: clasping his hands, rubbing his face, catching his breath before speaking. They\u2019re details that communicate emotion without dialogue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to guess, especially with Sam Nelson, what would people do [in that situation]?\u201d he says. \u201cHeroes tend to never have those moments. They’re like, \u2018I’m a hero\u2019 and get straight in. But when you play a character in the middle of a stressful situation, the audience relates to him more if he looks stressed [through his physicality].\u201d<\/p>\n

After spending his days immersed in tension, Elba says unwinding requires a conscious reset.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, usually it’s play video games, [spend time] with my family, maybe have a drink,\u201d says the father of two, who is married to Sabrina Dhowre. \u201cJust something that feels like Idris, feels like me. I don’t tend to watch films or television. I just can’t get my head out of what they’re doing versus what I’m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Music, however, remains his favorite escape \u2014 and it\u2019s always within reach.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking music is often a really cool reset,\u201d says the rapper and producer, who has his own label<\/a>. \u201cBecause you don’t know what you’re going to make when you go there, so you really have to dive into that creative space. It\u2019s good therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Add the subway to the list of places Idris Elba\u2019s fans won\u2019t want to bump into him. \u201cSeason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,28900,61,60,410,411,124150],"class_list":{"0":"post-246953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-idris-elba","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth","14":"tag-sam-nelson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}