Idris Elba loves that he’s not an action hero in Beast

Idris Elba is far from being an “action hero” in Baltasar Kormakur’s survival action-thriller Beast. He’s an ordinary father who finds himself in a scary and seemingly hopeless situation, but decides to fight his way out of it for the sake of his children.

For someone who has led actioners and done superhero roles, he found it exciting that he was more vulnerable than badass in Beast. “This character is definitely not an action hero. He’s not a superstar. He doesn’t hold a gun. He’s just a guy that’s in a really terrible situation. And that was appealing to me,” the Luther and Pacific Rim star said recently in a virtual roundtable interview.

In Beast, Idris is a New York-based medical doctor named Nate Samuels who’s trying to rebuild his relationship with his two estranged teen daughters (played by Leah Jeffries and Iyana Halley) after his wife’s death. They go on a family trip to a game reserve in Africa where Nate’s late wife originated from.

Idris plays a father trying to rebuild his relationship with his estranged daughters (played by Leah Jeffries and Iyana Halley) during a trip to a game reserve in Africa. South African star Sharlto Copley (leftmost) also joins the cast.

But what is supposed to be a respite and a time of healing from a family tragedy, in a beautifully exotic environment, throws them instead into another potential tragedy. They are being hunted down by a blood-thirsty lion that sees all humans as the enemy.

Beast, also starring Sharlto Copley (District 9, Maleficent), produced by Will Packer (Ride Along, Girls Trip) and directed by Kormakur (Everest, Adrift), officially opens in Philippine cinemas today.

With producer Will Packer on the set of the film in South Africa.

“For me, it wasn’t a difficult role to get into. You know, I’ve never been chased by a lion. I’d probably be exactly like Nate in real life if that was the case. But it was certainly exciting for me to portray a character that doesn’t have some of the tropes around action heroes that we will probably all see in films,” Idris said.

“And he was vulnerable, for sure. I think he’s vulnerable in the sense of his relationship with his children and this horrible scenario that they find themselves in.”

While the film was shot in a real South African bush, no real lions were used in the movie. Fighting off a CGI lion, nevertheless, taught the British star a new acting skill.

“I haven’t done a movie where as an actor I am sort of imagining and fighting with somebody that is not really there in such close proximity. I fought in other movies with swords and weapons, and against things that aren’t there. But this was a physical being, an animal that was literally ripping me apart,” he said.

“And that’s like, how fearful can you be when you’ve got a guy in a gray suit and a big, floppy head trying to beat you and you’re pretending it’s a lion? So, that was a skill set that I had to learn (for this film). I haven’t done that before.”

“Figuring out and calibrating” the level of fear of his character who “doesn’t fight, can’t fight, let alone fight a lion” were the biggest filming challenges, Idris further noted.

“There’s this moment where it was designed that I punched the lion and I was just looking at that and thinking, ‘I’m not sure how this guy is gonna punch a lion or punches a lion?’ These are things that we had to really dissect and understand,” he added.

“I was conscious that again, as I said earlier, this isn’t an action hero guy. This is a normal guy that just can’t fight. So, for me, those are sort of difficult areas to layer in and make you feel sort of believable.”

The titular beast wasn’t also just established as a believable “villain” without cause or a backstory. “This is an animal who has been sort of thrown into this predicament by human beings, which is based on some realities in that part of the world. It was important that we kept that reality as closely balanced as we could, because I didn’t want to villainize the animal,” Idris said.

“Lions don’t attack human beings often, but in this scenario, we did our research to figure out what would be the likely case study that would make this lone lion do that.”

Meanwhile, when asked about his filming preparations and how he had become physically “fit for a beast,” so to speak, Idris shared, “To be fair, the actual rehearsal process was really part of the fitness regimen because Baltasar wanted to shoot this whole thing in one go. We had to rehearse the whole thing every single time in one go.

“It was like having a wrestling match for like, two minutes, literally. You know, here, go there, go there, go there, roll over. You know, run, run or get up for that. That was literally a workout. We did that literally for two weeks all day and then we shot the thing.

“And shooting it was even more difficult because we were in the real environment. It was really hot. We had to wait for a certain light. I had a body harness and prosthetics and blood. But it was a job so that’s what kept me fit — at least, mentally.”

Beast delves into such themes as family relationships and man versus nature, and real issues like poaching or illegal hunting of wild animals and its damaging consequences.

On the question whether he was more attracted to his character or the story itself, he said, “If I’m honest, you know, all the ingredients for this film are all a little bit contradictory. All of it! I think it’s kind of like, which film do we want to make? A film about loss and you know, daughter-father (relationship) and being scared? Or do you want to make a film about poaching or do we want to make a film about the environment?

“The challenge was trying to put all those ingredients into a cup which I believe is an inventive or innovative spin on the ‘man versus beast’ genre. Putting all those ingredients in here was trying to do quite a lot. And that was a challenge. But I think that was what attracted me to it.”

Besides that, he loved that he was working with someone like Baltasar who had “real experience in survival films and what happens to human beings in these instances.”

“Making the whole film — it was so satisfying to try and pull it off,” he added.

Having seen the film, it’s safe to say Beast went “beast mode” on playing on the fear factor. From start to finish, there was no let-up of tense moments even without the “beast” appearing on screen.

During the making though, despite the story’s tension and horror, Idris said he had fun shooting, especially his scenes with his onscreen daughters.

“They were always fun, even though they were tense and you know, part of the bigger story is it’s just getting worse. But actually, working with the girls in close proximity and this layering the emotion and layering the connectivity and the dad, we had a lot of fun. It was tough work but Leah is very, very funny and Iana is very funny. Our collective sort of energy was fun to be around.”