Maybe one day Tom Hollander will wake up and realise he’s made it, but in the meantime, this Oxford lad will keep plugging away at what he’s best at – acting – only this time on a worldwide stage. Katherine MacAlister reports.

Tom Hollander has been talking about himself all day, and is weary of bigging up his new film In The Loop.

So instead, he starts recalling film anecdotes about working with Johnny Depp in Pirates Of The Caribbean.

“I found him putting false teeth in one day before filming and asked him what he was doing. It was like someone walking into your house and moving your sofa around without asking,” he says.

Tom Hollander, former Oxford schoolboy and now Hollywood actor, is entertaining, funny, gentlemanly and entirely bereft of vanity – a captivating cocktail by any stretch of the imagination.

Whatever name you tantalisingly drop, be it Kiera Knightly, Donald Sutherland, Judy Dench, Orlando Bloom, Bill Nighy, Kirsten Scott Thomas, all of whom he’s worked with, or the films Tom’s been in – The Libertine, Pride and Prejudice, Pirates of The Caribbean or Gosford Park – the 41-year-old still doesn’t rise to the bait.

“I don’t play leads,” he says gently. “Leads are played by people whose names are above the film title and if they flop they have to carry the can. I’m really not that famous.”

In fact, the only time Tom does get excited during our interview is when he mentions meeting Zac Efron from High School Musical and getting him to sign something for his Oxford nieces.

“They were very excited,” he laughs.

So does Tom still get star-struck?

“I think I always will be and that will never stop, because it’s strange when you meet someone you feel you know so well but have never met.”

A bit like meeting Tom then, except that we have met before, five years ago to be exact when he had just finished Gosford Park, so even he must agree that things are going great guns at the moment?

Pirates Of The Caribbean, in which he plays the malicious English Lord Cutler Beckett, has been a global blockbuster.

And, off the back of that, Tom has landed a large part in Armando Iannucci’s In The Loop, a film version of the hugely successful sitcom In The Thick Of It.

“Yes, I had always wanted to work with Iannucci,” Tom smiles. “And I was a bit anxious about it because everyone else had been in the original TV series so I was the new boy. But after a couple of weeks I relaxed and just enjoyed myself.”

Educated at The Dragon School in Oxford and then Abingdon School before heading to Cambridge University, Tom worked in theatre before landing a part in Absolutely Fabulous playing Saffy’s boyfriend, and the film parts started flowing in both at home and across the pond.

And whether it’s on the big screen or treading the boards, Tom’s reviews have been stunning.

But will he take any credit? “I’m sure people say nasty things about me as well as nice things,” Tom says, not that I can find any.

And his friends rave about him as well, from Emily Mortimor to Sam Mendes. Even Tom’s ex-girlfriends say he’s a gentleman. One thing’s for sure, Tom’s spending far longer talking to me at the end of a busy day than he needs to.

So who would Tom still like to work with?

“Well, if Clint Eastwood asked, I would be thrilled to work with him or to star in a Woody Allen film, but either way I’m absolutely thrilled with the way things are going. It’s certainly been an adventure. But my career has always been the main avenue in my life. And there have been times when I wasn’t working, when I got a bit low but then something always came up.”

‘Like another Hollywood blockbuster?’ I ask.

“Listen, people really don’t know who I am. They always think they’ve met me at their sister’s wedding and can’t place me, or they go into a huddle and discuss me, trying to work out what I’ve been in. I mean I’m not Robbie Williams. In fact it’s only 10-year-old boys who know who I am.” Maybe it’s because you’re always in a wig, I suggest.

He laughs. “I’m always looking for the next job just like everyone else so I don’t need to be kept down-to-earth, and I don’t earn enough to have a nasty Ferrari habit. But you can’t knock it because it’s wonderful to be employed in such an exciting environment,” he says.

In the meantime Tom spends his time at home in Notting Hill and ventures down the motorway at weekends to see his friends and family.

“Yes I was in Oxford on Sunday for my father’s 73rd birthday actually,” he says, “and it was very nice.” Like someone else I know.......

In the Loop opens at The Phoenix Cinema in Jericho today.