Sabrina Dhowre Elba has never been interested in being just one thing. She is a model, entrepreneur, actor, activist, philanthropist, UN Goodwill Ambassador and co-founder of skincare brand S’ABLE Labs. Yet, despite the extraordinary career she has built, the 37-year-old is still frequently viewed through one reductive lens: as the wife of actor Idris Elba.
“I don’t want to say I’m famous for marrying someone,” she tells marie claire editor Georgie McCourt on the latest episode of You’re Gonna Want To Hear This. “That’s quite annoying.” In fact, Dhowre Elba says she still feels like an outsider in the celebrity world she entered after meeting her husband in 2017. “I’ve married a famous person,” she says. “I still don’t feel like I’m in that world.” There are, of course, moments when the realities of Idris’ fame are impossible to ignore: unexpected photographs, interactions with reporters she initially mistook for casual conversations and strangers approaching her husband without so much as an introduction. “Somewhere along the way, we’ve just forgotten that we’re all people,” she says.
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Behind closed doors, however, there is no “celebrity couple”. There is simply a husband and wife navigating the same pressures, misunderstandings and occasional rough patches as everyone else. “A friend said to me once, ‘A good marriage is not wanting to leave each other at the same time,’” she laughs. “Someone’s got to be fighting for the relationship, because there are ups and downs.” For Dhowre Elba, the foundations of a lasting marriage are surprisingly simple: communication and kindness. “The second you stop being kind to each other, to me, that’s the sign of an end,” she says. “If I’m going to spend the rest of my life with this person, that is so important to me.”
Small gestures matter: bringing home a favourite sweet treat, cuddling at the end of a long day or simply making the effort to make the other person smile. “I think wanting to make him smile and him wanting to make me smile has been the thread through our relationship,” she says. “You should want to make the person you’re with happy – not at your own cost – but through those little acts of kindness.”
‘I Felt It Right Away’
Dhowre Elba’s certainty about her husband arrived long before the wedding. Asked whether she believes in soulmates – and whether she knew Idris was hers when they met – her answer is unequivocal. “I felt it right away,” she says. “And not just because he’s Idris. Because he’s really handsome – that was the cherry on top.”
The attraction may have been immediate, but it was their connection that convinced her. “We just got on, and we understood each other in a way that was so different from anything I had experienced before,” she says. “He opens my eyes and my mind to possibilities and teaches me something every day. And I do the same for him.”
“We have so many of the same shared goals and passions, and we feel like a team. It’s just the nicest feeling. He’s my soulmate.” That team has also become a formidable business partnership. Together, the pair founded S’ABLE Labs, a skincare brand combining African botanicals with modern formulations while prioritising ethical sourcing and the women who farm its ingredients.
Rather than lending their names to a product created by a major beauty conglomerate, the Elbas self-funded the business – a decision Dhowre Elba admits was both risky and expensive. “When it’s your own money, you really overthink every decision,” she says. But it also allowed them to build a company grounded in purpose. The brand works closely with farming communities and pays attention to the human cost behind ingredients that consumers may otherwise take for granted. “We have to be careful that we’re not using products that are destroying people’s lives,” she says.
Her Next Chapter
Business is only one of several worlds Dhowre Elba is moving between. After once considering law school, she has now stepped into her first lead acting role in an upcoming romantic comedy created by Somali boxer-turned-director Ramla Ali and her husband, Richard Moore. The film explores xenophobia within the Somali community through comedy and romance – an issue that felt deeply personal following the pushback Dhowre Elba experienced when she married outside her culture.
“I saw this film role and thought, ‘This is a great way to speak about an issue that is so important,’ because it does it through the lens of comedy,” she says. Playing Amina – a single mother who has sworn off love before falling for the Jamaican carpenter next door – also presented one particularly surreal challenge.
“I hadn’t kissed anyone in, like, 10 years other than my husband,” she says. “It was quite weird to make a film about falling in love with someone else.” Luckily, she had one of the world’s most accomplished actors available for guidance. When she asked Idris how she should deliver a line, his advice was characteristically intuitive: “If you’ve decided how to say it, you’re doing it wrong. You’ve got to do it in the moment.”
Acting isn’t the only new chapter she is contemplating. Dhowre Elba also reveals that motherhood is something she has “put on the back burner for so long” but now feels excited to explore. “I want to do it,” she says. “I know how amazing that position is, to be able to guide someone through life and to give birth. It’s a beautiful thing.” Her mother, Maryam, who raised five children and is yet to become a grandmother, is apparently growing impatient. Dhowre Elba, however, is determined to make the decision in her own time. “I want to be able to do it at my pace and on my terms,” she says. “But then, also, you can’t plan really. So we’ll see.”
She has already experienced parenthood through becoming a stepmother to Idris’ children – a role she describes as “one of the best things that could’ve ever happened to me”. Her approach is grounded in consistency rather than attempting to win a child over. “I think a lot of stepparents fall into the trap of wanting to be friends or being afraid to make a mistake,” she says. “But I realised it’s just consistency – letting someone know that you’re in their corner and you’re there for them.”
For a woman who has spent years being asked to choose between beauty and activism, business and philanthropy, marriage and her own identity, Dhowre Elba’s message is fittingly expansive. “Don’t be afraid to explore different sides of yourself,” she says. “Do the thing. Just do it.”
Listen to Sabrina Dhowre Elba’s full conversation with Georgie McCourt on marie claire’s You’re Gonna Want To Hear This, available wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the episode on the marie claire Australia YouTube channel.
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