"If I went off and did another fantasy film, everyone would say, 'He's not even trying,' but if I went off and played a drug dealer, they'd say, 'God, he's trying way too hard,"' he said.

"It never really was an issue," he said. "I don't know why, it probably should have been. I am terribly self-conscious. Although I remember I did look at my dad once and say, 'Do you think I could wear pants?"' (No, he could not.)

"Do you want the Top 5?" he asked. He reeled them off. "One of them was how I had grown 2-foot in about five weeks," he said. "The next was that I had a stalker, which again was utter fiction. One of them was that I had asked two former SAS guards to walk my dogs," referring to an elite British military branch. "One of them was that I ordered a special beer that was brewed in a monastery in Belgium by monks. And I hate beer. And then, the best one was the fact that they said that I was having a sculpture made for the middle of my living room of me in 'Equus."'

“Sometimes I can feel a bit sorry for myself if I’ve been lying down in the mud for the night shoot and then I have to get up at 4:30 the next morning,” he said. “But my mum and dad have always said, if anyone’s complaining, ‘Well, you’re not down a mine.’ ”