The actor and singer on baking with his mum, the joys of a kebab after work and which films have the best on-set catering

I remember once spending a Christmas with a friend’s family as our guests and as they arrived the electricity went off in the house. I had to phone the next door neighbour (who’d gone to his parents’ home with his wife and kids) and ask: “Please can I let myself in and cook my turkey in your oven?” In the spirit of things, he said: “Of course.”

My very first memory is of Marie biscuits. They were in a green packet, thin and like Rich Tea biscuits but with more writing. We’d always have butter on top. It’s a very Welsh thing, putting butter on your sweet Maries.

I was born on Easter Sunday and raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, by my mother, a housewife and sometime house cleaner, and my father, a bricklayer and great general builder, in a village [Aberbargoed] in the Rhymney Valley where the colliery had recently closed. The dining table was in the middle of the narrow galley kitchen, which led to our downstairs bathroom. We always ate there and Dad would start every meal with a prayer, based on what had been going on that day. Very personal, individual and sometimes sad.

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