Watching Daddy's Little Girls you'd have no idea that the star is British. Idris Elba plays Monty, a poor mechanic fighting for custody of his daughters. He sounds like you're all American urban dude, until they yell cuts and he goes Cockney.
Idris Elba on Daddy's Little Girls
"In all honesty I can get away with being sort of general, general urban in this film," said Elba. "Some other films that I’ve done my accent has to either sway one way or the other, and it’s actually quite a challenge to be more specific. My accent in London is general I guess, but my natural accent is very cockney, very hard, and that accent is very difficult to do for an American. So when I come to the characters I play in America it’s very general, the accent is slightly general, either very heavy urban twang or not."
Elba plays with the young actresses who play his daughters quite naturally, and this comes from real world experience. "I have a daughter, she’s five years old, and we spend a lot of time together, so that was something that I was used to, but the girls and I spent a lot of time together outside the set and on the set. They used to call me Film Daddy, which was great. There real daddy was there, and they used to go, ‘Daddy,’ and we’d both turn, and they’re like, ‘No, no, no, Film Daddy. Can we have some candy? Our real daddy said no.’"
As the romantic lead in the film, Elba had to keep in shape, which was kind of hard on location. "In actuality I was in Atlanta, so the food down there is pretty good, and I tell you what, I put on pounds, so I was in the trailer, ‘Alright, Idris, we’re ready for you, five minutes.’ And go, ‘Okay [starts doing push ups] I’ve got to work off that gumbo."
Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls
Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls
The film blends drama with some comedy, and Elba has to do some prancing on occasion. "Honestly, I try to be funny and it just doesn’t work for me, but I’ve always done drama, I’ve always done that sort of role, not that sort of role but dramatic roles, so it’s easy for me to make you cry than to make you laugh."
Tyler Perry's films have broken box office records thanks to the support of his core fans. Could Elba bring in the Brits too? "Because of the nature of the film, Tyler Perry has a huge urban audience, but I felt the idea behind this story is bigger than that. I think the issues that are brought up are bigger than that. A lot of children, a lot of families now are single parents, so that either means you’re spending time with mommy or you’re spending time with daddy. And I think that’s an issue that we all face one way or another, there’s going to be a huge society in the future that will say, ‘I was raised by my dad, I know what that’s about,’ whether you’re black, white or whatever. And in England, yeah, there are parallels to the culture here. And I think that the film is a feel good, real romance drama comedy-thing, I think it will definitely appeal. It’s whether people want to open up and go, ‘I’m going to go see that.’ Monty’s an everyman, so I feel that part of what I do as an actor is try to just open up my character a little bit so everyone can kind of go, ‘Yeah, I can relate a little bit,’ or not, or whatnot."
Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls is out in theatres now.
For the trailer, posters, and more movie info, go to the Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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