Idris Elba Told Guillermo Del Toro What He Does When He Doesn't Know His Lines, And Now We Can't Unsee It

In 2013, Idris Elba and Guillermo del Toro teamed up for their first, and so far only, movie, "Pacific Rim." Elba played Stacker Pentecost in del Toro’s story about a future where giant robots called Jaegers are piloted to battle the Kaiju that keep attacking Earth (we’ll revisit this world in an upcoming Amazon show). Nearly a decade and a half later, the filmmaker has revealed what the actor does when he doesn’t know his lines, and this has me wanting to be on the lookout for this tell when watching Elba’s movies.

This came up when Guillermo del Toro was participating in a THR roundtable with Bradley Cooper, Clint Bentley, Hikari, Noah Oppenheim and Will Tracy. All six wrote movies released in 2025 that have been getting awards buzz; in del Toro’s case, that was his film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s "Frankenstein." During the get-together, he inquired with Oppenheim, who wrote "A House of Dynamite," about his experience working with Idris Elba, as he played the President of the United States in the fellow Netflix subscription-exclusive movie.