Photograph by CHARLIE CLIFT

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How important is a little bit of nonsense now and then to you?
I like nonsense. One of my favourite sounds is laughter. I can corpse [laugh during a scene] very, very easily. I’ve worked with a few actors who are very good at setting other people off, and then not doing it themselves. I find that very cheeky.

What, if anything, makes you believe in magic?
I don’t believe in magic. One guy I know used to work out tricks for a very successful magician. So I’ve kind of seen behind the curtain. But I do believe that things are magical. Aretha Franklin or Otis Redding’s voice. The way Lionel Messi or Pelé played football. A work of art…

What was your last act of true cowardice?
I was sat on a table next to [Everton football manager] Sean Dyche the other day. I really wanted to talk to him but I didn’t. Afterwards, I was gutted about it. 

What single thing do you miss most when you’re away from home?
My bed, because I’ve worked hard to get that bed to fit me. I spend quite a lot of time – because of the job I do – sleeping in beds that aren’t my own. 

Do you have any odd habits or rituals?
I have to play two different forms of Patience – Simple Solitaire, and then Diplomat – until I win before I can start writing. 

What is your party trick?
I can do the Rubik’s Cube in under two minutes. It used to be under a minute.

What is your mantra?
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

What is your favourite smell?
The top of a baby’s head.

What do you always carry with you?
Cash in my pocket. Just a little mad money.  

What is your guilty pleasure?
I don’t particularly think that any pleasure is guilty but I take a great amount of pleasure in a well-made Old Fashioned. 

Who is the silliest person you know?
My mate Mark, who I go to the football with along with my brother-in-law. He’s just one of those guys on the terrace who always says the funniest thing at the absolute right time.

What would be your least favourite way to die?
I’d quite like one where people go ‘He had a good innings, and went surrounded by the people he loved.’
I don’t want one where they go ‘…and it took them ages to get him out of the tree’.

Lennie James graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and went on to work on stage and screen in TV favourites such as Spooks, Line of Duty, The Walking Dead and Fear of the Walking Dead. He has also appeared in numerous zeitgeist movies including 24 Hour Party People, Snatch, Les Miserables and Blade Runner 2049. ‘I like characters who are having interesting conversations with themselves,’ he says of what draws him to a role. As a writer, the Nottingham-born actor has penned semi-autobiographical film Storm Damage and Royal Court play The Sons of Charlie Paora. Next up he’ll take the lead in an eight-part TV adaptation of Bernardine Evaristo’s novel, Mr Loverman, playing a man coming to terms with ‘his 60-year love affair with his best friend, Morris, and how they’ve kept it a secret through each of their marriages’. In December, he will also appear in Lion King prequel, Mufasa, and has just finished work on Joshua Oppenheimer’s post-apocalyptic musical, The End.

Mr Loverman will air on BBC One and iPlayer in the autumn. Mufasa: The Lion King is released in cinemas 20 December