Idris Elba Says Michael Jordan Declined His Request to Play Him in a Biopic

Michael Jordan is the GOAT of basketball and almost everybody in any walk of life has appreciated or been inspired by the lengths that Jordan went to in order to be the greatest basketball player in the history of the sport.

One of those people is Golden Globe-winning actor Idris Elba, who talked about his admiration of Jordan during the latest episode of Complex’s “Sneaker Shopping.”

He even mentioned that he wanted to play Jordan in a biopic. But the GOAT wasn’t going for it and shot him down. To put in the words of Jordan himself, he took it personally.

During the episode, Elba said, “I even said to him one time, ‘I want to play you. He was like, ‘Hm, I’m not ready yet.’ That’s what he said, ‘I’m not ready yet.’ ... I was dead serious.”

He continued, “In my head, playing Jordan wouldn’t be about playing the basketball player; it was about the businessman. He is a very astute businessman, really smart. And his work as a philanthropist is, like, unspoken, but people don’t understand the work. He cares; he does a lot of work. So that’s where I was hinting at. I wanna play Jordan - I’m doing that. He was like, ‘Ah, I’m not ready for that story yet.’”

Oof. Tough words to hear from Jordan.

But it’s not like Elba is struggling for a job, he played Knuckles in the blockbuster movie Sonic the Hedgehog 2 which was released last month. He is also set to star and be an executive producer in a new limited series for AppleTV+ titled Hijack.

In 2021, he starred in the critically-acclaimed film The Harder They Fall alongside Regina King, Jonathan Majors, LaKeith Stanfield, RJ Cycler and Zazie Beetz.

While a Jordan biopic may never come, some of his story will be told in a movie about Nike’s efforts to sign him to an endorsement deal in 1984. Although nobody will actually be depicted in the film.