Alun Armstrong got his first screen acting lesson from Michael Caine while filming the gangster movie Get Carter.
When he heard they were making a film in his home town of Newcastle he wrote to the casting director asking to be in it.
"It was the only letter I ever wrote for a job," says the 77-year-old, whose screen career ranges from Braveheart and Eragon to The Mummy Returns and Old Tricks.
"They asked for a photo so I got three little photos out of the machine. My friend said 'they'll think you are a complete prat', but there weren't many actors with Geordie accents, and they cast me as this naive boy."
He'd done theatre before, but there was no handbook for working in film, so Armstrong watched his leading man - already a big star from Alfie and The Italian Job.
"Michael Caine taught me what to do. It was very different from theatre and I tried to match him in tone. I thought 'I will watch him and use my voice at that level."
He hadn't been to drama school and in his early career he was typecast in working class roles until a fellow RSC actor told him to ask for more.
"My dad was a coal miner from County Durham and he summed it up: 'can you not get yourself one of those parts with a collar and tie instead of all those jumper roles?'
"I was rehearsing at the RSC playing Dogberry (In Much Ado About Nothing) when the guy playing Benedict said: you should be playing this part.' I said 'they would never offer me a part like that', and he said 'have you asked them?'. So the next time I said 'I want to play the king,' and they said 'ok."
"It was a great lesson in bravado and realising they will only see you as you see yourself. I always thought those who have been to drama school will have been taught to do it the 'right' way, and if I was only shown the right way I would be better. It took many years to realise there are hundreds of ways to do it, there are lots of wrong ways, but no actual right way. Everyone inhabits a part differently because you bring something of your soul to it."
Armstrong's distinguished CV includes leading Shakespeare and classical roles, and even musicals. He won an Olivier award for Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, and originated the part of crafty landlord Thenardier in Les Miserables.
"The day it opened, I said 'this will last a week'. I am the worst judge of a success or failure!" he laughs.
Hopefully his instincts are better for his latest part in the premiere of Richard Bean's To Have and To Hold at Hampstead Theatre.
"I had seen One Man Two Guv'nors and laughed myself silly," says Armstrong who plays Jack, a 91-year-old fond of moaning about the digital age and bickering with his wife.
"So when a play arrived on the doorstep with Richard Bean's name on it I was delighted. It's about how young people deal with ageing parents who don't want to be dealt with, and how older people deal with their offspring living far away. That rang a bell straight away with me - I have three sons and two of them live abroad. It's that perennial problem; who knows best?"
Bean whose plays include Made in Dagenham and Jack Absolute Flies Again, has penned a lively dynamic between Jack and wife Florence in their Yorkshire retirement village.
"This couple have bickered for 70 years and raised it to a fine art. Everything is an issue to be combated."
Bean has said it's a story about "life, death and immortality".
"Jack is a storyteller but do you stories make you live forever?," says Armstrong who is enjoying playing older than his years.
"I've got terrible back ache from rehearsing and being in this (hunched) position. I haven't been able to do my usual yoga because of rehearsals, and I'm missing it. You've got to be fit to play old!"
As for getting older, he says he's "got on top" of the actor's curse of saying yes to everything. These days he likes to travel, see his children and do DIY.
"I have been lucky to have worked a lot, I used to be one of those actors it was my oxygen, my life was to work, but I don't want to do that any more. I want to spend time visiting my kids and grandkids. My wife supported me all those years - she worked as well - and brought up our kids when I was away for months on end. It's her turn now."
Having dipped his toe back into work life, he's remembering how demanding it can be "putting on a play, being in that character 24/7."
"It's such a risk you are taking, as I get older it seems even more challenging. I sit in rehearsal wondering is this a good idea! Why am I putting myself through all this again? But then I always want to be doing whatever I am not doing at that moment. When I'm working in telly I think 'it's much easier to be in the theatre!"
Currently on screen in the sit-com Breeders, his craggy featured are instantly recognisable, but he doesn't mind people asking for selfies or shouting 'Brian where's your bike?' referencing his New Tricks character.
"We went out with Clint Eastwood for an evening in LA while doing White Hunter Black Heart. It was before mobile phones but people kept coming up with cameras asking for signatures, and he was kind to everybody. I was so impressed and thought 'that's the way to do it.'"
His erstwhile co-star Caine recently announced his retirement from acting because there were no leading parts for old people.
"It's nice to have the main part, but only if it's a good part. I want a good part in a good play. Fortunately this is a great part in an extremely funny play. It's such a wonderful thing to make people laugh and give them a good time."
Most actors retire when they can no longer memorise a script he says: "I am happy with my part-time acting career. Actors generally work until their memory goes, and when that happens, you have to say 'it's time' and make a dignified exit."
To Have And To Hold runs at Hampstead Theatre from October 26 to November 25.
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