Idris Elba, Who Is In “Cats,” Does Not Understand The Plot Of “Cats”

Idris Elba was on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, and it turns out that Idris is not just a multi-talented sexy man/actor/DJ, he’s also completely clueless about the movie of which he has a starring role: Cats. To be fair, no one on Earth understands what the fuck is going on in Cats, it would be wrong to expect the same of Idris.

Idris appeared on Stephen Colbert‘s show to talk about his new movie Hobbs & Shaw which opens this weekend. So of course he was thrown for a loop when Stephen asked him about fucking Cats because his publicist doesn’t yet have prepared CliffNotes details for him to memorize before interviews. It comes out in December, Idris won’t know what’s going on in Cats until like late October–tops. When Stephen asked Idris what the plot of Cats is he said this, via Us Weekly:

“Oh, wow. What a way to throw me under the bus there… It’s a classic. It’s a big musical. Andrew Lloyd Webber. I guess it’s about a cat… It’s one cat’s journey towards what is essentially cat heaven, and that idea is that we all aspire to get toward cat heaven. There’s this young cat and she gets taken on this story on how to get to cat heaven or what you should do to get into cat heaven… How am I doing? Does anybody know what the story is?”

After that harrowingly haunting CGI disaster-trailer came out, I looked up the plot to Cats and honestly: Idris’ explanation is pretty damn close.

Idris also talked to Stephen about “cat school”. Despite the fact that I guess the director, Tom Hooper, wanted the cats to look like human/cat-hybrid/demons, he wanted them to act 100% authentic cat. So he sent the cast to cat school:

“He wanted the actors to really embody the feline persona, the vibe. And so he instructed this lovely lady, her name was Sarah I think, and she was a cat expert. In fact–not only was she a cat expert–but she was an expert at how humans should play cats.”

“That’s a job?” Stephen asks. Which is like: Hey! Do not insult this lady’s life work! But also… it is? Then Idris gives Stephen a lesson on how to act like a cat. I gotta say, watching Idris shoulder-shimmy and move like a cat is not not a turn-on. You feel me? I wouldn’t mind going to cat school with Idris Elba. Do we get to groom each other? Because I would gladly lick him clean… Too much? It felt too much.

Watch Idris on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert below, the cat training is around the end at 7:30–I strongly recommend it:

Pic: YouTube