Idris Elba isn’t just a great actor, he’s also a great voice actor and has kept him busy voicing characters in The Jungle Book, Finding Dory, and Zootopia. Well now you can add another animal role to his credit, as Elba is joining the cast of Wes Ball’s graphic novel adaptation of Mouse Guard, voicing a mentor figure ala Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Elba is joining a cast that recently added motion-capture master Andy Serkis and The Maze Runner‘s Thomas Brodie-Sangster, the latter reuniting with his director of that film. The movie is based on David Peterson’s comic set in a medieval world where a group of mouse warriors protects their people from outside threats. Elba will play Celanawe, an Obi-Wan mentor-like figure who was previously a legendary champion and who was thought to have vanished a long time ago. Serkis has the role of Midnight, a blacksmith who betrays his own people, while Brodie-Sangster is the young warrior Lieam. Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes) is listed as a producer.
Interestingly, Elba will soon play the mouse’s natural enemy, a feline, in Thomas Hooper’s big screen version of Cats. He can be seen right now in his new Netflix comedy series, Turn Up Charlie. Production on Mouse Guard begins in May. [THR]
