Actor/Musician Idris Elba believes he is more popular in Nigeria compared to Ghana, according to Cary Fukunaga, director of the movie, Beasts of No Nation.

Elba was born in London to a Sierra Leonean father and Ghanaian mother.

“I asked him that recently when we were in an interview together. He’s like the prodigal son, right? He said that people in Nigeria were more aware of him than they were in Ghana,” Fukunaga told Vulture.com in a recent interview.

“Maybe his shows and movies have been more widely disseminated there than in Ghana. But for those who did recognize him, it was something special.”

Idris plays the role of a warlord of a unit of mercenary fighters in an unnamed West African country. When civil war tears his family apart and militants kill his father, a young boy named Agu (Abraham Attah) is forced to join the fighters.

The movie has premiered at a number of prestigious film festivals across the world and scheduled to premiere in the United States of America on October 16 on Netflix and in selected theaters.

Based on the 2005 novel of the same title by Uzodinma Iweala, it was partly shot in Ghana also stars Ama K. Abebrese, David Dontoh and Grace Nortey.