There’s a little gesture that Idris Elba and Sabrina Dhowre Elba both do when they see something that they like. They twiddle an imaginary ring on their pinky finger and nod slowly, lips slightly pursed, with a face of deep approval. It’s all very mob boss, until they look at each other and burst into laughter.
“The ring thing is actually something that we picked up from our friend [British actor] Stephen Graham,” explains Idris. “I directed him in my film Yardie (2018), where he did the gesture, and it just stuck with Sabrina and I.” The statuesque couple are sat next to each other, squished into a private banquette. For demonstration purposes, they turn their heads slightly to face each other then both hands go up as they mimic the gesture and smile.
“It’s something we both do when we see or think of an idea that we haven’t done yet. We do it when we’re impressed,” says Sabrina, before Idris concludes: “It’s a sign that we recognise when something is good. I mean really good. One of the things that Sabrina and I share is that we both recognise greatness—it fuels us, it motivates us. We are constantly working towards getting to that North Star. Greatness.”
The Elbas are not your average couple. Sure, calling the pairing of a major Hollywood A-lister and a stunning model and former Canadian beauty queen ‘average’ is like scoffing at those who don’t spread caviar on toast for breakfast (they don’t, btw), but it is not what they have done that sets them apart, it’s what they are doing—the quest for their North Star.
Married in 2019, Idris and Sabrina Elba are partners in business as well as partners in life. Having set up their company, S’Able Labs, they have launched a genderless skincare and cosmetics line that takes a more inclusive approach to darker skin tones, and notably produced a podcast series called Coupledom, featuring interviews with all kinds of couples—not just other married people, but mothers and daughters, and business partners. They are also UN Goodwill Ambassadors for IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development)—focussing on issues related to food security, climate change and environmental conservation.
In the past year they have used their role to advocate on the challenges faced by rural farming communities meeting multiple world leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden, and the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, in order to try shift governmental understanding with regards to growing environmental issues faced by marginalised farmers. In January 2023, they became the first couple to receive the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award, which celebrates leading artists whose leadership has inspired inclusive and sustainable change. Previous winners include Sidney Poitier, Bono, Leonardo DiCaprio, Angélique Kidjo and Elton John.
This past February the Elbas were in Dubai to be the recipients of the TIME100 Impact Award and to be the keynote speakers at the World Government Summit held at the Museum of Future. It was during that week that Esquire Middle East had a series of conversations with the couple to learn a little more about their star-chasing ways…
On getting together
Idris Elba is a man who unwittingly commands a room’s attention. As he slow-walks into the sunlit living room of the impressive ultra-luxury Amaia villa property in Dubai’s Al Barari, his star power and natural charisma is palpable. As one of a handful of actors who can justly claim to be a Hollywood leading man, his story already is well-known. The only child of Sierra Leonean and Ghanaian immigrants to the UK, he grew up in an East London council estate and, in the 1990s, followed his dream of being an actor to New York, making his name with that extraordinary controlled and seductive performance as Stringer Bell—the thinking person’s drug dealer—in The Wire, one of the finest TV dramas ever made. He has since gone on to big-screen success and cultural ubiquity as an actor, director, producer, DJ, rapper, entrepreneur, fashion designer, philanthropist, podcaster, heartthrob and all-round cool guy.
It was in 2017, during his time filming Mountain Between Us in Vancouver, that he met Sabrina Dhowre, a Canadian model of Somali descent who was working at a bar and finishing her university studies. They met at a jazz bar, on a night where neither of them had wanted to go out, but for some reason fate intervened and their lives changed. Some would call it serendipity.
SABRINA: I had been working long shifts all week and was exhausted, but it was my friend’s birthday so I went out and ended up meeting this perfect guy. It all felt a bit like fate. But I don’t think Idris believes in stuff like that…
IDRIS: I do! In fact, ‘serendipity’ is one of my favourite words. Some things are just meant to happen. When I met Sabrina I was coming out of a relationship and I was done with love. I was in a head space where I was thinking: ‘I was born alone, and I’ll die alone’, but then I met this really intelligent, smart, beautiful and funny person who was so unaffected by things—it was so refreshing. I come from an industry where people all too easily become self-important, and here was someone who was just so genuine and positive, and… themselves. It was great for me.
SABRINA: My life massively changed after that night too. With Idris, everything is so exciting and every day can bring something new. I still feel like I want to spend every waking minute with him. He made, and still makes, me feel like there is nothing I can’t accomplish.
IDRIS: I think we found something in each other that unlocked something within the other. I would say things to her like, ‘why would you model for a skincare brand, when you can own one on your own?’
SABRINA: It’s always that way with Idris. He’s such a blue sky thinker. He always dreams bigger and grander. At first I would roll my eyes, but now I have adopted that mentality, where I can see myself somewhere I never would have been able to before. It’s one of my favourite things about him, and I tell him all the time. I’ve never met a dreamer like him. Idris could probably wake up one day and fly, just because he willed himself to do it!
IDRIS: I think we can all do that, it’s all about perspective. When someone is able to unlock something in you, that’s when you start to see the serendipity all around you. A friend of mine, who is a powerful music manager, took me for dinner recently and said that he wanted to see me doing something big, like having a company that merges with Apple. Not one that is bought by Apple, but one that merges with it. At first I was like, ‘that’s crazy’, but that’s exactly the kind of thinking and scale that I’m talking about.
“As a black woman, growing up you often feel like your opinion can be squashed. ‘Don’t talk too loud, or too much’. It’s not like anyone ever told me not to, but certainly I have never been encouraged to…Idris’ attitude started changing that for me.”
– Sabrina Dhowre Elba
SABRINA: When someone opens your eyes to the possibilities then you start to feel the waves. As a black woman, growing up you often feel like your opinion can be squashed. ‘Don’t talk too loud, or too much’. It’s not like anyone ever told me not to, but certainly I have never been encouraged to.
IDRIS: For example, I tell Sabrina that we should own Sephora, or a competitor of its size that focuses on black skin. No one is doing that. So why not? Then the more you think about it, the less it seems so far-fetched.
SABRINA: It was a big shift in my life when Idris’ attitude started changing my way of thinking. It empowered me, and made realise that I can use my voice…
IDRIS: She’s getting emotional. I can see it. She has a lip thing that happens when she starts getting emotional.
SABRINA: …we all have the same hours in the day as Beyoncé, right?
by Oscar de la Renta
overshirt and pleated trousers, all by Zegna.
25H watch by Gucci
On working together
Everyone navigated the COVID pandemic in their own way. For Sabrina and Idris—confined in their home in London—they talked. They talked about their daily routines, about mental health, and the impact of being isolated from their loved ones. Not too far removed from their wedding (a spectacular ceremony in Marrakech in 2019), they explored the concept of partnerships and of progressive ways to build a good and purposeful life with another person. These conversations eventually led to the idea of setting up S’able Labs—a lifestyle and wellness brand. The name being a cute reversal spelling of ‘Elbas’. Idris’s idea.
The first product of out of the ‘Lab’ was the Coupledom podcast. In an Audible-exclusive limited series where the Elbas hosted other interesting and inspiring duos in honest and unguarded conversations about all the complexities of living a shared life whether it was in life or business. In an episode with the founders of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company, they discussed the importance of a successful business being built on a set of clear ethical values. This would lead to the next evolution of S’able Labs’ journey: a genderless skincare range.
IDRIS: We loved doing the podcast, and I think there is more in it. The idea of exploring the essence of partnerships—what makes things work and not work; how to navigate who you are, while being in a partnership—is a really underserved area. Speaking to Kim K[ardashian] and Kris [Jenner] about their relationship was fascinating. I remember being really nervous about opening up and sharing my own experiences with them, but I actually found it therapeutic. We’re now deciding what direction it should go next. Maybe it’s televisual? Maybe it’s a TV show?
SABRINA: We had so many interesting conversations. One that stands out to me was talking to Ben [Cohen] and Jerry [Greenfield], who said “business isn’t inherently bad or good, it is all about how you use it.” At the time we were still creating what we wanted S’able Labs to be about, and I remember thinking, before anything, our business needed to add some good to the world.
IDRIS: It’s true. Our skincare brand was born out of frustration. We found ourselves looking at products that were specifically marketed for either men or women and wondered ‘why?’ I would also watch Sabrina having to use hundreds of different products to combat her hybrid pigmentation condition simply because the products available were not melanin-inclusive.
“Our skincare brand was born out of frustration. We wanted to create something that was different—products made for both genders, for people who look like us, who have problems like us.”
– Idris Elba
SABRINA: Hybrid pigmentation is something that everyone faces, but the fact is, it is not addressed in every skin care range. We also felt that things in the industry seemed a bit selfish. The skincare and wellness industries weren’t really addressing things like community and relationships, which we thought should have a much larger part of the ‘wellness’ sphere. Ultimately, we wanted to create something that was different—products made for both genders, for people who look like us, who have problems like us. It is a labour of hard work and in-depth research. We don’t want our work to be ‘pink taxed’ because we being lazily lumped into the ‘celebrity skincare’ category, or to be dumbed-down because Idris is a guy. Skin is skin at the end of the day.
IDRIS: One of the big things I’ve had to improve since we started working together is my tolerance. Sabrina is the first partner that I have worked with, so I have to think a little differently to what I am used to. I am an only child, which I think has always led me to focus on myself, especially in my career, and I’ve not really had to think of it any other way.
SABRINA: The fact that what we do is so intertwined, and that we work together so intimately, it has taken my level of compromise to a different level. There would have been instances where I previously would have perhaps been frustrated, but I’ve learned to sit and take the time to understand and be patient. You learn to be understanding and accepting of someone else’s weight, and their world. Idris has a pretty big world… a multiverse, even.
IDRIS: A multiverse is a good way to put it.
On being a force for good
The recent geopolitical troubles in Ukraine not only sent the average cost of living soaring, but it exposed the global dependence on food imports. But, in truth, a growing food crisis has been building for some time as incremental changes in the planet’s climate have begun disrupting weather patterns and damaging agriculture.
As U.N. Goodwill Ambassadors for IFAD, a large part of the humanitarian and philanthropic work done by the Elbas is to highlight the urgency in what they describe as a ‘broken food system’. Whether it is meeting disenfranchised rural farmers in in Sierra Leone, Kenya and Zambia; helping launch a U.N. coronavirus fund for poor farmers; or advocating on their behalf to convince world leaders to invest more than $1.5 billion in smallholding agriculture—the couple has been on a mission to put food and farming centre stage and talk about how Africa’s farmers hold the key to creating a global food system that could meet both farmer and consumer needs.
SABRINA: If someone had told me that I would be working in agriculture, I would have been surprised because I was unaware of how important the issues are and how much impact it can have on global society. Perspective is everything. The effects that climate change has on rural people is very different from others. For those in privileged positions, the idea of climate change seems like something that will happen in the future, but for rural people it is on their doorstep. There is a sense of frustration, but it does remind me that the work we do is so important. Billions of people work to feed billions of people—and that is not often given the credit it deserves.
IDRIS: Of course we’re not the most powerful people in the world, but we do realise that perspective is transferable.
SABRINA: Empowerment is a big part of our philanthropic work. Working and advocating for underserved people whose voices aren’t our own. We are blessed to have the access to power, and we use that to transmit the message of those who don’t—for those who aren’t in the rooms we are in. We are very proud to be part of the African diaspora and we believe that Africa’s future will be built by its young people and by its next generation of innovative entrepreneurs.
“We are blessed to have the access to power, and we use that to transmit the message of those who don’t—for those who aren’t in the rooms we are in.”
– Sabrina Dhowre Elba
IDRIS: It’s easy to forget that often we are speaking to people that have never been told that they can achieve something, or even that they are worth anything. When we talk to women who work in rural farms in Africa, and we give them credit and praise for the work that they do, it is both great for them to understand, and gratifying for us on a human level. They have such thankless jobs, and they don’t get publicly applauded for their work like I do as an actor—but their jobs are more important.
SABRINA: There is so much going on in the world that it’s easy for things to be forgotten about, even for example: ‘where your food comes from?’
On watching Idris on screen
Idris Elba’s genre-hopping career has always suggested a wide-range of interests and a restless nature, as well as an inexhaustible work ethic.
Highlights include his Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), and the mesmeric Commandant in the terrific Beasts of No Nation (2015). The baddie in Star Trek Beyond (2016). The ship’s captain in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012). The irascible Bloodsport in the outrageous The Suicide Squad (2021). He was Heimdall, the Norse god, in Thor (2011), a role he reprised in no fewer than five further Marvel movies. He has spread his honey tones over a menagerie of animated characters. In 2016 alone, he was a buffalo in Zootopia, Shere Khan the tiger in The Jungle Book, and a sea lion in Finding Dory.
Should you not have seen or heard him in any of the above, you will have had to actively go out of your way not to see him as John Luther—the gritty crime drama set in contemporary East London that has spanned five seasons and now a full-length film—Luther: The Fallen Sun—on Netflix.
SABRINA: Idris will probably tell you that I don’t watch his stuff, but I do! The funny thing is that once you are with someone, it takes the magic out of a TV show because you’re watching your husband on screen and not the character—but when we go to a premiere, I feel it on a different level, because I’m more proud that he’s in the show or the film, and I can celebrate the work rather than just being fully immersed in it. Although, I must admit, I never watched Luther… I’m not big on the whole grisly murder thing—but watching the new Luther film at the premiere, I loved it and really saw some elements of Idris in the character.
IDRIS: To be honest, I don’t really enjoy my actual life when I’m working on Luther because it is so intense. Luther is a big chunk of my life, and it’s hard to come home without him, because I’m not home enough—it’s 12-hour days and a deep, intense role, so perhaps I’m a bit more deep and intense in my home life when I’m working on Luther.
SABRINA: That’s true actually. When he is working on Luther, he brings back a different kind of energy home.
IDRIS: Sabrina hasn’t seen all of my work, but that’s because I’ve been in more than 100 different things. But certainly the stuff I’ve done since we’ve been together she has seen.
SABRINA: I watched your role in The Office (US)! That’s one of my favourites!
IDRIS: I typically don’t watch myself when I’m acting, because I was there while it was happening, so I know and have seen too much. But as a director, honestly, I don’t like watching anything when it’s done. I tend to sit there scrutinising every shot and every decision. I’ve shot loads of music videos, and remember only watching them once when they came out. I don’t like it—I’m way too self-scrutinising to enjoy my own work.
SABRINA: On screen Idris is a superstar, but I know him as my husband. Sometimes it’s hard for me to separate the two, but you can’t not recognise him as a great artist, a great creative and a great force of good.
See more of Idris & Sabrina Dhowre Elba in the May issue of Esquire Middle East, on newsstands now
Photography by Juankr / Fashion & Styling by Laura Jane Brown / Hair by Maggie Semaan / Make-Up by Jessica DeBruyne / Grooming by Jac Ludlow / Fashion Assistance by Imogene Legrand & Charlotte Marsh-Williams / Produced by Steff Hawker
Location: Amaia Villas, Al Barari Dubai. Special thanks to Allsopp & Allsopp