Idris Elba has shared that he has been in therapy due to his unhealthy habits. The actor revealed during the “Changes with Annie Macmanus” podcast that he sought out therapy around this time last year.
“It’s a lot,” he said. “In my therapy, I’ve been thinking a lot about changing, almost to the point of neuro pathways being changed and shifting.”
“It’s not because I don’t like myself or anything like that, it’s just because I have some unhealthy habits that have really taken hold. And I work in an industry that rewards those unhealthy habits.”
Idris said that his workaholic habit of staying busy with projects has had a negative impact on his well-being.
“Nothing that’s too extreme is good; everything needs balance, but I’m rewarded massively for being a workaholic compared to someone who says, ‘Eh, I’m not going to see my family for six months,’ and I’m in there grinding and creating a new family and leaving them,” he shared.
“Those are pathways that I had to be like, ‘I’ve got to adjust.’”
“So I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and oddly enough, a lot of our childhood is really at the root of it,” the “Luther” actor added.
Elba, one of the stars featured in the Pirelli 2024 Calendar, said he “definitely wants to” find activities that help him unwind but admitted that the catch-22 is that he finds work relaxing.
“The thing is, the things that make me relaxed end up being work,” he explained. “My studio in my house, I just love being in here.”
“I’ll open that laptop and be like, ‘I don’t know what to make today,’ and it’ll come out like this or that. And I’m exhilarated by that and also so relaxed by it.”
“I could work 10 days on a film, doing underwater sequences, holding my breath for six minutes, and come back and sit in [his studio], and [feel relaxed], more so than sitting on the sofa with the family — which is bad, right? This is the part where I’ve got to normalize what makes me relaxed; it can’t be all work,” he added.