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The Shipping News is set in Newfoundland. Did you feel like an outsider in this remote community, or did coming from Wales help?

In a sense, I feel a lot more an outsider in Los Angeles than I did in Newfoundland. But, you know, it helps. It helps filming on location, anyway.

Every gust of wind, every drop of rain is useful, because so often when you're making a film, you find yourself in an asbestos-ridden studio in Los Angeles or London, having to imagine the outside world of the narrative. But in this case, you're there and when the wind blows, the wind blows.

The past few years have been amazing for you. Has Hollywood lived up to your expectations?

Well, I wasn't working in Hollywood when I did The Shipping News, I was living in Newfoundland with a European director [Lasse Hallström].

Yes, I've worked with Hollywood stars, but the reason most of the Hollywood stars I've worked with are Hollywood stars is that they're excellent actors, so I've been very lucky.

You were very convincing playing an English twerp. Do you fear being asked to do it again?

I think there's a lot more twerp in the English to explore than being Beaufield Nutbeem.

What about the English accent?

The accent wasn't a challenge. I mean, he's an English schoolboy who thinks he can sail. You know, the world's full of them... at the bottom of the sea, mostly.

What did you do in your spare time in Newfoundland?

I walked a lot. I read a lot. I drank a lot. I ate a lot, and I kissed a fish.

Can you elaborate on that?

Well, it's a Newfoundland rite of passage - or it's something they do to laugh at actors. But I was a willing servant, and there's a drink they have called Screech, which is a rum you could probably run a small tractor on. So you drink the rum and then you kiss a cod. It's how you join in, I guess.