Never mind that it’s so hot outside.
Actor Idris Elba is wearing the heck out of a black leopard-print funnel coat as Maxim’s first solo male cover model.
Elba stars in Maxim’s September fashion issue, which goes on sale today.
Some walls are meant to be knocked down.
“We’ve never in U.S. Maxim history had a man on the cover solo,” Maxim editor-in-chief Kate Lanphear told Racked. “This is the very first time, and there was no one else in the world more bad-ass than Idris.”
Americans first fell for the London-born Elba in his compelling role as “The Wire’s” drug dealer Stringer Bell. He played Nelson Mandela in “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” and is starring in the next “Star Trek” movie. He’s also a DJ and has a clothing line coming out.
Fans are pushing for him to be named the next James Bond, which means he won’t be, he told Maxim.
“If I were the Bond producers and everyone was pointing me toward one actor, what’s the surprise in that? Honestly, it’s one of those things that if it should happen, it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy; it would be the will of a nation,” he said.
But Elba recently broke a 90-year-old British speed record driving a Bentley for a UK TV show. He averaged 180.4 miles per hour over a full mile and hitting a top speed of 186.4 miles per hour as he shot past a second marker.
Maybe the Bond folks should reconsider?