Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson
©2014 Angela María Ortíz S.
No Good Deed is a straight-up thriller starring a couple of powerhouse performers: Taraji P. Henson, best known for Person of Interest (we still miss you, Carter!), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the upcoming music/drama Empire, and Idris Elba, the legendary performer from Pacific Rim, Prometheus, the Thor movies, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, and of course The Wire.
SeFijaOnline had a chance to sit down with both of them–one right after the other–in a recent press junket, and what you’ll hear here is pretty much that entire raw recording. We thought long and hard about trying to edit Taraji P. Henson, but really, what’s the point? She is absolutely irrepressible, and everything she said that day was worth listening to. And who would dare to mess with the powerful tones of Idris Elba? We just don’t have the nerve.
The premise of No Good Deed is pretty simple: A mother with a baby on her shoulder, all alone in her house, thinks a friend is coming by in the early evening, so she opens the door when the bell rings…and finds Idris Elba, playing an escaped convict, standing outside. The rest of the film is a fight for her life, and the outcome is far from assured.
We start the talk with Taraji’s own view of that first crucial moment in the film, when Taraji’s character Terri opening the door to Elba’s Colin.
Taraji P. Henson
Once Taraji had had her way with us, the ever-impressive Idris Elba sat down for a few minutes, and brought a whole different energy into the room. He talked about his most famous roles, his future plans, his background as a real, life Cockney, and the odd and exhilarating experience of working with Guillermo del Toro. Above all else, Elba came off as a regular guy, an amiable and intelligent man with great (and justified) confidence in his abilities, who likes to work, likes to surprise his fans, and clearly likes to keep everything on an even keel. See if you agree:
Idris Elba
Taraji will be seen next in Empire when it premieres in the spring of 2015; Idris mentioned two of his upcoming films, A Hundred Streets and Beasts of No Nation. Personally we can’t wait to hear him in the role he was born to play: the voice of Shere Khan in the upcoming remake of Jungle Book.
The cast also includes Leslie Bibb, Kate del Castillo, and Henry Simmons. No Good Deed opens citywide, state wide, countrywide on Friday September 12.
