Idris Elba Praises Tom Hanks For Speaking Up About Coronavirus

Coronavirus knows no colour or creed. Whether you’re rich or poor, famous, infamous, disabled, optimistic, or convinced the world is going to hell in a toilet-roll stuffed handcart, it’s going to affect your life. Little has exemplified that more than the slurry of coronavirus sufferers coming from the world of entertainment.

Idris Elba is one such figure who announced that he had the disease, and having sufficiently recovered to make media appearances, the star has taken to Oprah Winfrey’s Apple TV+ show, Oprah Winfrey Talks COVID-19, to, and this going to shock you, talk COVID-19.

Elba discussed the difference between public perception of the illness and the reality of contracting it, saying:

COVID-19 has come to a sort of pressure point right now but for the last two weeks, it’s been a talking point and I really felt that a lot of people didn’t know what was going to come … It didn’t really feel relatable. There were a bunch of theories going around: It’s a conspiracy! Is it even real. And when I got tested and it came back positive, it became very real.

In particular, he singled out praise for fellow actor and COVID patient Tom Hanks, who made the decision to publicaly acknowledge he had the virus:

Tom being in a – I suppose – a high risk category, while being on set on a film, came out immediately, which was the right thing to do, 100%. Film sets are incubators, essentially … I think Tom definitely did the right thing … I spoke to my wife about it and said, ‘I really think I should say something’ and she said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’

Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson learnt they had tested positive while in Australia, where Hanks was filming an upcoming Elvis Presley biopic. The pair have since stated they are recovering well though and are doing alright.

I myself have just recovered from something viral and flu-y. Actually, I have no idea whether it was viral or not, just that the gastric chaos it unleashed is something I could really do with not reliving. Yep, one week off writing and you’re all desperate that I was still ill. It’s like that Sherlock scene. You know, that scene. Did you miss me?

Only got round to watching two movies while quarantined, though. The Wolverine, which is three quarters pretty good and one quarter crapped the bed. And Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which was pretty good all the way through, but I wanted more Spider-Men. In the future, you can expect more reviews in miniature to pass the isolation time.