Idris Elba explains his 'The Wire' character's 'tough' fate

Idris Elba, known for roles in Luther and Thor, recently reminisced about his time on the critically acclaimed HBO series The Wire.

In a candid interview on the What Now? podcast with Trevor Noah, Elba revealed the unexpected and somewhat awkward way he learned about his character's fate.

The British actor said that, although he had pleasant memories of the hectic transition from struggling actor to smart criminal Stringer Bell, he was taken aback when his character was murdered in season 3.

“I didn't know my character was gonna die until we got the episode,” Elba told Noah, 40.

He jokingly added, “It was tough love.”

The star described how he learned of Stringer's fate after saying that "it was scary" and "a tough pill to swallow" to abruptly lose his starring role on a popular series and work less regularly for a while.

Elba recalled, “You usually get your scripts, you know, like two, three in a row, they write them. And I think the way I got it, I got episode seven. I was like, ‘Oh, um, episode seven. I got episode seven. Where's eight? Can I get eight? What's wrong?’”

“‘Uh, you're not, not, you're not in eight,’” he continued, reenacting his interaction with the showrunners at the time. “‘What do you mean? I'm not in eight?’ ‘You should read, you should read it.’ That's how I kind of found out.”

The Wire was Elba's first major role in a U.S. series. He appeared in the show's first three seasons before his character was killed off.