Nelson Mandela watched Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy movies in jail Idris Elba takes on the role of a lifetime, playing former South African Former South African President Nelson Mandela in 2010. NELSON Mandela is a Robert De Niro fan. At Thursday's premiere of Long Walk to Freedom in New York, Harvey Weinstein recalled bringing Mandela to a party where he thanked De Niro and Eddie Murphy, saying he watched all their films in jail. "So you never know who's watching your movie," Weinstein cracked to a crowd that included Ronnie Wood, Tony Bennett, Rosario Dawson and Gayle King. Zindzi, Mandela's daughter with second wife Winnie, introduced the movie, saying, "It wasn't easy growing up with parents like mine ... When my father left I was just a girl, and when he came home I was a mother of three. Zindzi says she's happy with Idris Elba's portrayal of the South African giant. "My father is somebody who is very modest; he doesn't think of himself as anybody great," she told us. He doesn't need to covet attention, and Idris, I find, is like that.