So i feel very, i love being onstage. I love being in a live environment. I havent been onstage, actually, for a couple of years now, five years, probably. But im looking forward to going back and doing some more because it is, its live and you have a control over the performance, which you dont on screen. Is it true, that thing people always say about how you feel the audience when youre onstage . You can feel whether theyre paying attention or slightly looking at their watches, thinking, am i going to make the last train home . Yeah. You can . Totally. The last play i did was a beautiful play by Bill Nicholson called shadowlands, which is a movie with debra winger and tony hopkins about cs lewis and his late flowering love. And its shot through with great wit and humour about this very closed off man who finds love late in life, and then she dies. And its really a story about the question that he asks at the beginning of the play is, if god is love, why does he allow suffering . And cs lewis has to come to terms with that. And the final scene, when cs lewis finally breaks down in front of his late wifes son, is very, very, very moving. And i have to say, theres a quality of silence when you get it right. And to hear, whatever, 800, 1,000 peoplejust going completely quiet as this man goes through what hes going through, its very special. Its very special. As is a huge woofer of a laugh, you know, and you cant get that. I mean, you can get it in a movie theatre, if you all go please, never stop going to Movie Theatres but we do become, you know, we have become, particularly since the pandemic, and we all bought bigger tvs and we sit at home with our popcorn, we think, why would we go out and share an experience . But there is a hunger for the live experience, and long may it last. Could we see you in shakespeare again . 0h, id love to, yeah. I dont know what, but. Any roles youd love to play . Well, i think its time for my romeo, dont you, katty . i hate to say this, hugh, you know, maybe a little, little old for romeo. Imean. Well, listen, ian mckellen played hamlet. I dont want to be your director, saying, god forbid, im sure the Make Up Artist could do a greatjob. Well, i think if ian mckellen can play hamlet at 83, then. You could damn well play romeo . I can damn well play romeo might need a, you know, a truss or something ok, i think we should go downstairs. But, wait, can we do it . Can you manage this . 0k. Romeo and juliet, the balcony scene, for one night and one night only, brought to you by Hugh Bonneville and katty kay. Oh, gosh, i havent done this for. I dont know, how many years . This is your challenge. 1982, i think i did this. But soft what light through yonder Window Breaks . It is the east and juliet is the sun arise, fairsun, and kill the envious moon who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. Be not her maid, since she is envious. Thats all youre getting i mean, thats all i have to say. She speaks, but not to me. 0k, applause i think we got. We nailed it. Weve got the role 0ne take and one take only. Weve got the part. You grew up quite shy as a child. Acting doesnt seem like the obvious career. I know a lot of people who are sort of shy or introverted in some ways and find a release onstage or in character. I think thats certainly a characteristic of mine. I was the youngest of three. My sister was six years older, so i wasnt alone. I mean, sorry, iwasn� t lonely, but i was alone because they were, you know, they were at boarding school. So, i did have to make my own entertainment, really. I didnt have them, you know, chasing me around the garden and pinching me. So, the Dressing Up Box became my friend and the world of the imagination. And you had a lodger who was an actor . Thats right. Did that inspire you . Definitely. There was an actor called michael bates, who my parents had known just from, as a neighbour when they used to live in south west london. And we were living in South East London now, and the Greenwich Theatre was our local theatre, and michael came to lodge for a few nights, or a week or so, while they were getting the play up and running. And ijust thought he was the bloke who, you know, had a boiled egg at breakfast. And then one night, my dad said, shall we go and pick Michael Up From The Theatre . And i was very excited because it meant staying up past my bedtime. I was probably seven or eight. And i can remember going to the Greenwich Theatre and creeping into the back of the stalls, and there was our lodger onstage, and it was a play called forget me not lane, by peter nichols. And it was the final scene, and i cant remember whether it was a funny scene or a pin drop silent scene, whatever. He and his colleagues were telling this story in the dark and had 300, 400 people in the palm of their hands, and i was absolutely captivated. The next morning, ijust stared at him at breakfast. I was completely mesmerised. Forget the egg and the. He was the god who ate an egg. And i looked at him in a completely different way, that he and his colleagues had had this extraordinary impact on a shared experience in a room like this, you know, and that really, i can remember it vividly. So, that was a proper influence. The characters that youve played and that youve particularly become well known for in america, i guess it was, i mean, it was Downton Abbey, so lets talk about that, that kind of catapulted you. I and some friends spent every sunday night for about four series of Downton Abbey having dinner together, watching. And our kids, there were sort of six kids, and we would go from house to house. We always liked it when we went to our italian friends, the food was better and we would sit and watch Downton Abbey, and almost everyone i knew was having a similar experience. And i remember the first time i met you, it was at the state department. I went in and i said, hugh, do you realise how big it is here . It was just when it was exploding. And you said, i dont know why. Its just a posh soap which it is, and i mean that as a compliment to it. Julian fellowes was a big fan of coronation street, which is one of the longest running soaps in the world, i think, hugely popular still in britain. And he was a big fan of The West Wing and scenes that, or rather, shows that have tremendous pace to them and short scenes often, usually. And that was one of the characteristics of downton, that it had this sort of Breakneck Pace to it. Or rather, if you got bored of one character, there was another one coming along in about 25 seconds. So, it did have that soap element. And certainly, for most of us of the show, you could say that it was about, for example, tension, not violence, romance, not sex. You could sit down with your granny, you know, and with your grandchild and watch it. And that sense of crossing the generations was something that really, i think, took, why the show took off, that it became a family experience, as you say. The other movie, i guess, that i knew you for first and that i think americans did as well, was notting hill. Talking of rather bumbling british characters but i have to say, i love bernie. And for me, he stole the movie. I mean, Julia Roberts and hugh grant, but it was, there was, you had those short scenes, where you took the film away. Was that film, for you, a kind of breakout moment as well . We talked about Downton Abbey, but i imagine that notting hill and what you did with that role. Notting hill was a wonderful experience, i have to say. It was my first sort of decent part in a film. All of us had much bigger parts, and they ended up on the cutting room floor, in order to put the money on the screen, hugh and julia, understandably. But we had a beautiful, it was a beautifully written script and really fun to do and with nice people. And we had a laugh. And i was in a, you know, a big budget movie for the first time. So, whats not to like . I learnt a lot on that film. For instance, if youre going to do a dining room scene, be careful what you eat on the wide shot because youve got to eat it on every other angle. And we do, as you may recall, whos going to eat the brown, the last brownie . And. 0h, at the end of the dinner party . At the end of the dinner party, theres a whole brownie sequence and i, like a mug, at 8am, ate two brownies on the wide shot. And so, there are about eight other angles that day and i ended up having to eat these bloody brownies and i swear to god, i went out for dinner that night at a friends house and they served brownies, and i sort of virtually threw up so, i learnt that trick of the trade dont eat unless you have to. What was it like working with a kind of real celeb . The first time you. I mean, Julia Roberts was mega. Still is mega, but was mega when you worked with her. Yeah, yeah. Was that kind of daunting, scary . Did you have normal human reactions. Well, it was quite funny, because these were the days. Or were you confident enough to say, whatever, a celeb . Well, i can remember, we were rehearsing in this Freezing Cold Church Hall in notting hill, literally with a sort of gas heater here, and we were all huddled round, and its the days when there was a lot more smoking going on. So wed all be puffing away. And roger michell, the director, and, er, you know, with their ashtrays. This is beforejulia arrived. So we had two or three days, i think, before she arrived. And then literally, on the day she arrived, everyone stopped smoking. Suddenly, there was. And she came in. I remember her coming in and saying, you know, hi, and she was wearing jeans and a t shirt. I thought, a, shes stunning, you know, of course, shes got this amazing radiance about her, but also, shes just completely normal. Shes just one of us. And the first thing she said was, anyone have a cigarette . So out came five packets of silk cut so. Well, thats sort of what the films about, isnt it, really, in a way, notting hill . Its about that notion of normality and celebrity and the trappings that come with it, good and bad, to do with being in The Public Eye. You know, its a tricky one. And youve now been in The Public Eye. I mean, it must be, that was kind of, like you say, about the trappings of. Do you have moments where you think, 0h, god, ijust want to be anonymous . And. Yeah, ido. It� s hard for you to walk around. Yeah, All I Ever Wanted was to be, frankly, All I Ever Wanted was to be onstage. I never thought id be on telly or, indeed, in a film, or be in The Public Eye in that way. So, its a strange, it is a strange thing. Its a strange thing, when youre in a restaurant and youre aware that someone� s taking Pictures Of You and you think, well, can ijust finish my meal . And, you know, erm. People always say, im sorry, i dont normally do this. You think, well, theres two lies, straight away youre not sorry and you do do this, and i am in the middle of a meal. And can i, you know, can ijust finish my meal, then well have a picture outside or Something Like that . So, i think the world of the camera phone and all that has changed things a lot. Have you ever thought of playing an american . Hugh chuckles. Can i hear you . No go on no, im too self conscious. Ive got proper. He can do it please no, i cant. I bet you can. No, i can with a bit of study, but, no, im too self conscious now. But we did do once on i think it was stephen colbert, we were doing, three of us went on, three of us from downton went on and he gave us the script and we had to do it, do the characters in american accents, which was quite funny. So, reading robert as an american. I cant. Yeah, i cant do it. My kids do both british and american. And when theyre with their american friends, they only speak american, and when theyre with us, they speak british and they cant switch. So if they were with us, they couldnt speak american. Thats interesting. They dont know how to. Yeah. Its a language that belongs. Its an accent that belongs to certain circumstances in their life. So i can see why you cant suddenly turn it on. No, i should be able to. Even though you did a very good romeo. No, im not falling for it Romeo In American . Yeah in american accent but soft light through yonder window i breaks. You did it a bit like some of your characters, and im thinking, i guess, of bernie, particularly, in notting hill, youre one of the most Self Deprecating people i know, in real life and on screen, but. So im sort of almost not sure if i can ask this question, but what is it that makes you such a good actor . Er, im a good listener. Acting is about listening, i think. And. Theres a Michael Caine story. He does it, theres a lovely thing on youtube, which i recommend to every young actor to watch, its a masterclass he did, probably 30 years ago now. And in it, he talks about when he was onstage at the Royal Court Theatre in london, in his early career, and he had, you know, no lines or whatever. I think he was playing a policeman or something, standing at the back of the stage while the interview took place with the copper and the bad guy. And at one point, the director said to him during rehearsals, he said, what are you, what are you doing, michael . He said, well, im not doing anything. I havent got anything to say. And he said, no, youve got loads to say. Youve got the world of stuff you could talk about, but you choose not to. So, in other words, keep it alive. You know, keep the thoughts alive, even if you have got a smallish part. And actually, Julian Fellowes brought that up at the read through of the very First Episode of Downton Abbey. He said, Go And Watch Gosford Park and look at sophie thompson. She hasnt got a lot of lines, but shes absolutely present in every single scene. And you absolutely are inside the head of that character, which was a very good note. So, its about being present. Its about being, and, as i say, listening and reacting. Its notjust about how many lines youve got. What you wanted from it when you were a child and you went and saw that lodger, is it what youve got from it, that sense of being able to captivate an audience . Yeah. I think probably the happiest four days in my career were when, at the Royal Shakespeare company, the four plays that wed rehearsed over the period of several months, finally came on stream together. And that thrill of being with the same company of people, pretty much the same company, with a different audience every day, with a different, wonderful play, that was thrilling, and i loved that. So, that element of doing what i used to do as a kid with the Dressing Up Box, Doing Itand Being paid for it is a wonderful feeling. We had something to show you. This is a kind of little this is your life, Hugh Bonneville, moment. Oh, my gosh. What . Ah 0k. So that is my very first professionaljob. Thats. Wed, erm. I had understudied Ralph Fiennes as lysander in a midsummer nights dream. Then we went on tour around europe, and i got promoted to play lysander because he was playing 0beron. And so, this is my hermia. Beverly hills was her name. She changed her name from Beverly Williams to beverly hills. And, uh, and carolyn backhouse. And this is an actor called ben cole. Actually, you changed your name from williams. I did, youre quite right. But not to hills not hills, no. Not to beverly hills. No. Yeah, no, because. Maybe that was aspirations. So, that was actually, thats taken in munich. We were doing publicity for the show, as we took it on tour around europe. And, yes, i look like ive got really funny big pants on you have got funny big pants on, but it is still very recognisably you. Um. This one, i love. Ha ha well, yes, you were talking earlier about the impact of our show. This is, i think, about season four or five, and when the show had become hugely popular. And you can see theres a couple of Paparazzi Lenses there. Quite a lot of paparazzi. Yeah. Thats what i love. It looks like youre sort of hiding. Iam you are hiding. Literally hiding. And i love that picture because they dont know im there. Yeah. So, iam. We were about to do a scene over in the village shop, or the church, or whatever it was. And, yeah, by then, we had to have security and stuff because people wanted to come and see what we were up to, and the paps wanted long lens pictures. So, just to be able to stand just behind a wall, knowing that all that was going on. Yeah, its the knowing smile that you know youre hiding and they dont know youre there, thats what i like about that. And this is now your life, of course, where you just hang out with matt damon and George Clooney oh, yeah, well, he was, i have to say, the most generous of directors and company leaders, a true gent, and i couldnt believe it. My first days filming on the Monuments Men was with the lovely bob balaban and john goodman, matt damon, jean dujardin, and, erm. And then, yes, 0k, weve got paddington here. So, the reason for this is that when we finished paddington i, there was an edict went out from studiocanal, the producers, saying, wed love to see where paddington goes this year. Will you send in photographs so we can keep the bear alive, as it were, while were editing . And so i took paddington everywhere with me. And i had him, you know, i took him on chat shows and, you know, they always cut it out. But i took paddington. So, i said to the Monuments Men, guys,