Christmas with Idris and Columbus

Hot, hunky and busy actors Idris Elba, last seen in Tyler Perry's feature Daddy's Little Girls and opposite Hilary Swank in The Reaping and Columbus Short of Stomp the Yard, Save the Last Dance 2 and the comedy Accepted play brothers Quentin and Claude in the family dramady This Christmas. Quentin (Idris) is a musician with heavy gambling debts and Claude (Columbus) is in the military. Both bros come to the family home in L.A. for the holidays where all sorts of family dysfunction, both comic and serious, takes place.

We sat down with the two actors in Beverly Hills recently and found them to be mega-funny and friendly. Idris has got his smooth U.K. accent (which he ditches for the film) and Columbus is really cute in his glasses. After the guys compliment and dis each other on their choices of colorful wardrobe, we asked them some questions:

TeenHollywood: We got the feeling that all the actors in this movie lived in a house for two months as a family to get the chemistry because frankly you don't look like brothers and sisters but you all made it work.

Idris: That's actually great that's coming across, you know, in the film because that was what it was like when we were making this film. We had such a great synergy together. I don't know. I don't have any brothers and sisters in real life so I could just imagine this is what my brother would be like.

Columbus: I'm the oldest of three brothers. I've got two little brothers and our family is not as big as that, of course, but I feel like the biggest part of what made this movie work is just what Idris said and for that to translate was just completely, 100% a credit to the cast and just us wanting to make a good movie. There was no egos on that set. Everybody was like, 'My man, we're going to go into this. We're going to make a great movie'" and we all loved doing it with each other. That was what was great.

TeenHollywood: At the end of the film, the whole cast gets in a "Soul Train" style dance line. So who did the best dance?

Columbus: I think Regina [King]. [He starts boppin', moving his arms], Regina, Regina got it...but then Keith Robinson got it too.

Idris: But that was one take. That was like all of us just going in and having fun and that was how long those scenes were with all this. There was a lot of complicated dialogue. Everyone's being in one frame shooting and you have to really team with your people to make that look as naturalistic as possible. Everyone in the cast does that well and that's what I think helped this gel because we were like, 'This is like theater right now and we're rehearsing.'

Columbus: Every person in that movie has a level of feist and bite. So it was like Loretta [Devine] is for real. Regina's a firecracker. Sharon Leal [whistles]. You understand? So you got everybody just constantly there with cracks going on back and forth. You know what I mean? It was great.

TeenHollywood: If you were doing improv, you weren't stepping on each other's lines either so that's amazing.

Columbus: The greats do it well. Think about it. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, they improv all day and they know how to. It's like music. When you have a jazz band, you'll have three musicians who've never played together come and do a jam session and they know when to fall back. When the guitar player is soloing, I'm going to fall back a little bit. I'm going to know when to riff and do it tastefully. I feel like that's what you get when you work with veterans. You got a bunch of people who aren't trying to compete for the spotlight but make something to put into a pot to make a product great.

TeenHollywood: Columbus, were you in the service like your character because you held yourself tall, like you knew the uniform?

Columbus: All my family's in the service. Both my uncles, my aunts, they were all in the service. I honestly just play one of my uncles. [Laughs] That's what I did. Like the way they talk to me and everything. They love you but they just don't have the emotional chip that civilians are necessarily wired with. You know they're jarheads. They're wired differently. They're just like [swings arms robotically] 'I love you.'

Idris: You know, Columbus, no pun intended, but he can do the soldier boy dance as well. [Laughter]

TeenHollywood: Columbus, the scene where you pull a gun in the club, when you read the script for that, how did you really feel about it?

Columbus: Actually that was my only like 'Uuuuhhh.' Really. I always like those challenges because the challenge of an actor is not to perform great written scripts and great wit and everything perfect because then we don't have a job. When that scene came, it was a challenge of 'just how are we going to make this real and how are we going to make this feel like it came from a real place'? After we did the scene I felt okay, but when I saw it in the movie, I was like 'It works because he has a hot temper. He's hot headed'.

TeenHollywood: Chris Brown acted with you in Stomp the Yard. Was the dynamic between you different this time?

Columbus: Chris was a lot more serious in Stomp the Yard even for that small part and Chris is a goofster. This movie embodies really who Chris is. He had us laughing. That's another reason why I think the movie works. Chris just had us laughing all the time.

Idris: Sure did. He was so good. His timing for the comedy was crazy, naturally crazy.

Columbus: It's like where'd you get all the charisma?

Idris: He's a charming kid, man. My girl loves him. [Laughter]

TeenHollywood: Idris, you have this cool accent. You don't talk that way in this film. How do you get that certain accent and ditch your own?

Idris: Honestly, you know, because I've lived here for a while, I soaked the accent up. I'm a mimic. I'm constantly listening and just registering and just soaking some of the idiosyncrasies of the city and the people and generally that's what I do. I don't think that I'm perfect with accents. I just have an ear for it and I want to be better. Like now I want to start trying to hone in on regional really bringing in some of the texture and tones of some of these intricate American accents that I want to get.

TeenHollywood: You are getting blown away a bit lately. Like you got shot in American Gangster.

Idris: That's the thing, you know. Crime doesn't pay. [Laughter] Crime doesn't pay.

Columbus: I would let Denzel blow me away though. Seriously.

Idris: I don't like dying in films actually. When I see it, I'm always disturbed by it. So I want to stop doing that I think. [Laughter]

TeenHollywood: This Christmas is full of music in the home. It's a big part of their home. When you guys were growing up, was music a big part of your life?

Columbus: Yeah, definitely, especially Christmas. The Boyz II Men Christmas album, whooooo. [breaks into song singing the lyrics] It had it all. Silent Night, Boyz II Men.

Idris: Killin' 'em, Killin' 'em.

Columbus: Killin' 'em. But I come from a musical family in Kansas City in the Midwest so music is huge, a huge part of my DNA I think.

TeenHollywood: And Idris, what was your family listening to over in England?

Idris: Over there on the other side of the pond. My parents are from West Africa so I grew up on a lot of African music, you know, Senegalese music in actuality. It's really beautiful guitar. Congolese music as well. And then my dad used to buy a lot of records. He bought a lot of the Marvin Gaye classics and at Christmas time music was on all the time, all day, all night. Records, music, records, music, so when I saw the film, the music worked for me.

Columbus: We open it great [with "Santa Baby"] and you close it with the Soul Train line. There's nothing... I'm sorry but when you watch this, when Black folks see a Soul Train line from '65, they're all.... Whooo!

Idris: But you know what's crazy about it, this film is good even without the holiday spirit kind of kicked in yet. It's not Thanksgiving yet and you're watching this film now and going, 'Wow, that's a good film.' Imagine what it's going to be like when the festivities kick in, man. I'm gonna go see it just for that. I want to be in New York freezing with a big old coat and a scarf and go watch that movie.

TeenHollywood: Everybody has family members like somebody in the movie. Everybody can relate to it.

Columbus: Oh yeah. Everybody has a crazy uncle or cousin. Everybody has the hard nosed sister. A bad marriage and you know there's always a couple kids running around. So I think this movie was very true to the vein of what a family is but also I think it followed in the footsteps of "The Cosby Show" and "A Different World" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air," the shows that showed affluent African American families dealing with regular issues.

TeenHollywood: Do you think this movie has the real potential to become one of those appointment viewings every Christmas?

Columbus: I guarantee it's going to be that. I guarantee it. This is the only one. I don't know of another Christmas movie that's specific to our culture. But I think this gets everybody. This is going to get the grandmothers and it's going to get the little girls screaming for Chris Brown.

TeenHollywood: And the older ones screaming for you two?

Idris: [points to himself] And the older ones. [Laughs]

Columbus: [grinning] Silence is golden.

TeenHollywood: What are you guys doing for Christmas?

Columbus: I'm taking a break because I'm going like non-stop and the only break I'm going to have is the break everybody gets in America - that two weeks. I'll probably fast or do something just to clear my mind and then to open up for the new. Because, when you're doing movies that close together, you don't want to be the same character, you know. You want to empty yourself out and then download the new stuff. So I'm gonna probably just chill.

Idris: I'm not sure. Maybe a vacation. I'm gonna spend Christmas in the sun this year. That's what I'm gonna do.

TeenHollywood: What's next for both of you?

Idris: I'm going to do a film with Jada Pinkett Smith. She's directing a film called The Human Contract. It's her first film - she's written it and will direct it. I'm looking forward to that. Prom Night, which is the slasher movie and it's really good. Brittany Snow's in that. Very smart. I play the hero. I can't talk too much about it. And then Guy Ritchie's film called RocknRolla. That comes out next year and I get to do my own accent in that. Love that. [Laughs]. Ludacris is in that one too.

Columbus: I've got Whiteout with Kate Beckinsale. Basically I discover the first murdered body in Antarctica. Gabriel Macht is in it and she's a U.S. Marshal and we have to figure it out in four days before whiteout in Antarctica. Then I do Quarantine next month with Jay Hernandez, Jennifer Carpenter, Jonathan Schaech. Then right after that I go into Armor with Matt Dillon. It's basically a blue collar heist movie. I'm a young rookie armored truck driver. He's a veteran truck driver and they coerce me into stealing $42 million but I don't want to do it. So most of the movie I spend in the back of an armored truck with them trying to get me so it's like... 'It's gonna be good. It's gonna be exciting'.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.