Idris Elba Elaborates on Statement About Not Describing Himself as a 'Black Actor'

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Idris Elba is addressing the ongoing discussion surrounding a statement he made about no longer describing himself as a "Black actor."

On Saturday, the Luther: The Fallen Sun star, 50, wrote on Twitter that "there isn't a soul on this earth that can question whether I consider myself a BLACK MAN or not."

"Being an 'actor' is a profession, like being an 'architect,' they are not defined by race," Elba tweeted. "However, if YOU define your work by your race, that is your prerogative. Ah, lie?"

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Elba's comments come just days after a feature in the spring 2023 issue of Esquire UK was published, where the actor addressed racism he's experienced in his career while adding that he has "stopped describing myself as a Black actor when I realized it put me in a box."

"We've got to grow. We've got to. Our skin is no more than that: it's just skin," he said.

Elba continued, explaining that he gets often asked if he experiences racism, which he has, but doesn't ask his Black friends to "tell me about racism" in conversation. "I'm not any more Black because I'm in a white area, or more Black because I'm in a Black area. I'm Black," Elba shared. "And that skin stays with me no matter where I go, every day, through Black areas with white people in it, or white areas with Black people in it. I'm the same, Black."

He later added that he didn't "become an actor because I didn't see Black people doing it and I wanted to change that," but rather because he was interested in the profession. "As you get up the ladder, you get asked what it's like to be the first Black to do this or that," Elba said. "Well, it's the same as it would be if I were white. It's the first time for me. I don't want to be the first Black. I'm the first Idris."

Elba said he knows he "might be the first to look like me to do a certain thing," and that ultimately, that's "part of my legacy."

"So that other people, Black kids, but also white kids growing up in the circumstances I grew up in, are able to see there was a kid who came from Canning Town who ended up doing what I do," he said. "It can be done."

Pietro S. D'Aprano/Getty Idris Elba

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Elba caught up with PEOPLE back in October about his then-new Netflix series Human Playground, a documentary project for which he served as the voice for and penned an introduction to an accompanying photo book.

The goal of the documentary and book, shot and written by Belgian photographer Hannelore Vandenbussche, was to "explore the unifying force sports has on humanity," per a release.

"This documentary, this team, literally widens my point of view on sports, on being an athlete, widen my perspective on endurance and what human beings can do, what they're capable of," Elba told PEOPLE. "And so if people are watching this at home and going, 'Whoa. I struggle just to get to the gym,' that's okay."

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Elba has also been keeping busy with promoting Luther: The Fallen Sun, the film continuation of the popular BBC One series. In the Netflix movie arriving on Feb. 24, he reprises the character of DCI John Luther, who decides to break out of prison and take care of some unfinished business.

Those behind the film told Entertainment Weekly that while fans of the show will be tuning in, you didn't have to keep up with the program to understand the movie.

"The story in some ways continues — if you binge the series from season 1 to the film, the story is continuous," director Jamie Payne shared. "But because the film has got such a larger platform, we thought it was important that if someone was watching the film for the first time that it had its own story. So you could watch the film and go back and then binge the series. It was important to all of us that the audience could find a way into the series and to the lore."