Idris Elba is the hero of Beast, a survival story which pits a widowed husband, on a trip to South Africa with his daughters, against a huge rogue lion who is tracking them.
The lion was created using special effects and during filming there was a stand-in stuntman wearing a big foam mask.
Elba said: ‘I haven’t done a movie where I’m imagining — and fighting with — something that is not really there, in such close proximity.
Role: Idris Elba is the hero of Beast, a survival story which pits a widowed husband, on a trip to South Africa with his daughters, against a huge rogue lion who is tracking them
‘I’ve fought in other movies with swords and weapons and against things that aren’t there.
‘But how fearful can you be when you’ve got a guy in a grey suit and a big floppy head trying to beat you? So that was a skill set that I had to learn.’
He added: ‘I don’t like to watch films that I’m in.
Funny: The lion was created using special effects and during filming there was a stand-in stuntman wearing a big foam mask
‘I typically go to a premiere, watch the first ten minutes and then leave. But for some reason, I stayed… which was torture!
‘However, I was just fascinated about how we achieved the ferociousness of this lion.’
Elba plays a man who brings his two daughters to Africa, where he first met his late wife, when their lives are turned upside down.
‘It’s about a family that go back to a small village in West Africa to mourn the death of a loved one, my ex-wife and my childrens’ mother,’ he explained on The Tonight Show this week.
Glamorous: Idris is pictured at the Beast premiere earlier this week in New York where he was joined by his wife Sabrina Dhowre Elba
‘Basically, they find themselves cornered by a rogue lion who has been sort of broken from their pride by poachers,’ Elba continued.
He added the movie is, ‘basically a survival story,’ adding his character and his daughters, ‘are having a tough time dealing with the death of their mum, so it’s really about the beast coming for them, the beast of mourning, the beast of family ties and how that all comes together
‘We based that lion in the movie on a lion that’s been extinct for a long time, it’s called a Barbary lion,’ he said.
‘It was a huge lion, much bigger than the average lion, so for the film we just amplified the fact that this was really big,’ Elba added.
They also shared a laugh over the stuntman Owen who was dressed in a makeshift ‘tiger’ suit, which Fallon joked was the ‘scariest thing I’ve seen in my life.’
Beast will be in cinemas from August 26.
Plot: ‘It’s about a family that go back to a small village in West Africa to mourn the death of a loved one, my ex-wife and my childrens’ mother,’ he explained on The Tonight Show this week
Source: | Dailymail.co.uk