In an interview with People, Idris Elba dropped a major reveal: he auditioned for the role of Gaston in the 2017 live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast.
“I honestly love musicals,” he said to People magazine’s editor-in-chief Jess Cagle. “I auditioned for Beauty and the Beast. I really did, for Gaston.”
Nevermind those old videos floating around of Elba crooning about “private gardens,” the man also loves a good musical, and there’s an actual video somewhere proving it. Be still our hearts.
The best part of this reveal is how the audition came about. Instead of sitting around hoping for the phone to ring, Elba was so passionate that he sought out the powers that be. Not the other way around. “I called and said, ‘Listen, I want in!’ So somewhere they have a tape of me singing,” said the actor. Where is this video you ask? Elba noted that this tape is, sadly, nowhere to be found. Though considering how everything eventually turns up on the internet, here’s hoping it turns up one day.
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As we now know the handsome barrel-chested misogynist role of Gaston was awarded to Luke Evans. But rest assured Elba has no ill-will for his cohort.
When Cagle asked Elba about whether he resented the fellow Brit nabbing the role, he jokingly responded, “No, only a little bit. No! I love you Luke, you know that.”
Elba is currently on a press tour for his latest film, The Mountain Between Us, in which he plays Ben Bass, a heroic everyman type, alongside Kate Winslet's risk-taking character, Alex Martin.
Needless to say Ben is much more likable than Gaston.
The Mountain Between Us hits theaters Oct. 6.
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