British actor Idris Elba says he wanted to capture the spirit of Nelson Mandela, not impersonate him, while playing the role of the former South African president and anti-apartheid leader in a film.
Elba said Monday that acting as Mandela in "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" was a gift and that he read a lot to understand the man who spent 27 years in jail under white minority rule and guided South Africa to all-race elections in 1994 that propelled Mandela to the presidency.
Elba spoke at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg. The film, based on Mandela's autobiography, will be released in South Africa in late November before opening in the U.S. and other markets.
Mandela, 95, is critically ill and being treated by doctors at his Johannesburg home.
News Briefs
- Monday, Nov. 4, 2013
- Monday, Nov. 4, 2013
The painful story of a free black man lured from his home in New York in 1841 to be sold into slavery, now the basis of the new film "12 Years a Slave," has a little-known connection to a slave site that still stands near the nation's capital.
Alexandria's one-time slave pen complex, based out of a colonial-style rowhouse, was once the epicenter of the domestic human trade in the United States after the importation of slaves was banned, according to historians. The last slave trader at the site, James H. Birch, was the same dealer who paid kidnappers $250 for Solomon Northup of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and sold him into slavery in Louisiana.
Northup's story of 12 years in slavery, published in 1853, is the basis of the new film from British director Steve McQueen. Now curators hope the film will spark new interest from visitors and historians in a rare slave site that still stands near the Capitol. It has been open to visitors for More
- Monday, Nov. 4, 2013
Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries have agreed to pay over $2.2 billion to resolve criminal and civil allegations that the company promoted powerful psychiatric drugs for unapproved uses in children, seniors and disabled patients, the Department of Justice announced on Monday.
The allegations include paying kickbacks to physicians and pharmacies to recommend and prescribe Risperdal and Invega, both antipsychotic drugs, and Natrecor, which is used to treat heart failure.
The figure includes $1.72 billion in civil settlements with federal and state governments as well as $485 million in criminal fines and forfeited profits.
The agreement is the third-largest U.S. settlement involving a drugmaker, and the latest in a string of legal actions against drug companies that allegedly put profits ahead of patients. In recent years, the government has cracked down on the pharmaceutical industry's aggressive marketing tactics, More