The offices of the UK Prime Minister and the President of the United States of America are two of the most powerful positions someone can hold in the entire world. Yet, despite similar levels of authority, in both real life and film, these roles require completely different skillsets due to the typical context and political atmospheres in which they operate. While no politician has ever held both offices, there have been actors who have played both roles, yet Idris Elba doing both in the same year has provided some of the most fascinating watches. In both roles, Elba uses his portrayal to communicate the stakes of each film and proves just how important a narrative’s context is in shaping the decision and tone of a character.
Idris Elba Played Two Very Different Kinds of Leaders in ‘A House of Dynamite’ and ‘Heads of State’
Netflix and Prime viewers will be extremely familiar with Idris Elba’s face by now, as both films in which he played the Prime Minister and President, respectively, come from these streaming platforms. In the comedy action flick, Heads of State, Elba played the Prime Minister opposite John Cena‘s President, where the pair are hunted by terrorists after being separated from their security detail. Elba later played the President in A House of Dynamite, where he is not the central protagonist, due to the story’s three-chapter structure, but he is certainly the most significant operator in that story, as a nuclear warhead is launched at the US, and they only have 17 minutes to respond. In both stories, Elba’s character holds great agency, yet the contexts within which he is placed change Elba’s performance, giving us two very different characters.
In Heads of State, Elba’s prime minister is remarkably confident, with cheeky winks and cold put-downs to Cena’s president. Not only is this to do with his character’s feeling of superior intellect to Cena’s celebrity status as president, but the comedic tone of the film makes the stakes feel important, yet never gloomy. The audience is aware that it is unlikely someone will actually be killed, or the world will fall in this kind of flick, and they are allowed to enjoy Elba’s sarcasm in the face of danger.
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In contrast, Elba’s performance in A House of Dynamite presents a more weary president. Before he even learns of the missile, his exhausted expression, coupled with several shots of him rubbing his face, and the more grounded day-to-day aspects of his life, such as needing to get an insole placed in his shoe, frame this as a far more realistic yet competent president. During the catastrophe itself, Elba’s hands shake, and his heaving shoulders show the heavy burden his President carries as he must decide whether to effectively commit mass genocide with a counterattack or to sacrifice 10 million Americans in the hope of preventing further war. Not only are the stakes objectively higher, but it is Elba’s performance that significantly grounds them and highlights the doom the world faces, not allowing the audience to enjoy the danger, but instead learn from what Elba’s President calls the “insanity” of what is nuclear war.
Idris Elba is the First to Play Both the Prime Minister and President in the Same Year
Idris Elba isn’t the first actor to portray the two leaders of the UK and the US. Gary Oldman also played both roles to great success, portraying Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour and President Truman in Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer, with both films winning Academy Awards, and Oldman winning Best Actor for the former. However, Elba’s is far more fascinating, not just because of the range, whereas Oldman’s entries are both prestige dramas but also because they came within the same year. This makes it far easier to analyze just how key a film’s context is in shaping a character and performance.
Many would think that if you take a character and put them in another film, they would behave the same way. But Elba’s snap turnaround from stern and funny Prime Minister to a likeable yet terrified President shows how it is the film’s events, not the character biography that shapes how we see them. Elba’s roles may not win him an Oscar like Oldman’s did but that doesn’t make them any less impactful, and only serves to show what a talent Elba is as he effortlessly fits in both comedy and drama.
A House of Dynamite is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
