Idris Elba is sitting in a booth in the restaurant of his half-renovated it’s-not-a-members-club in Notting Hill, his arms spread like Jesus on the cross. His eyes are closed, his face turned to the freshly painted ceiling. “Right, guys,” he says, though it’s only me here. He speaks like he’s leading a meditation: “I want you to lay down and close your eyes. Now I want you to imagine there’s some heat behind you and you’re like, What is that heat?” A pause. “I’ll tell you what it is: it’s oil. You’re in a frying pan, and you are a fried egg. And you’re about to go –”

Elba’s body starts snapping and popping like an egg over high heat, his fingers jumping like bubbling egg white fanning out from the yolk (his head). For seven seconds, the man is a fried egg.

He stops abruptly and laughs, shaking his head. A few years ago, he became the first patron of Immediate Theatre, a youth-focused organisation in Hackney, where he will, maybe, one day, teach this acting exercise. From my seat in the booth, it’s clear he’s joking. But perhaps he’s not: it was this same acting prompt that set him on his course many years ago. While the other boys in the school were afraid of looking stupid, all Elba cared about was whether or not he was believable in the role. “Half the boys were like, ‘What the fuck is this guy doing?!’” he says. “And then I’d be like, ‘How was that?’ ‘You look stupid.’ ‘Did I? Or did I look like a fried egg?’ That was all that mattered to me.

Read more at British GQ.