What I’ve learnt: Richard Armitage

Leicester-born actor Richard Armitage, 49, made his name playing Lucas North in the BBC drama Spooks and – despite being 6ft 2in – the dwarf prince Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit. Most recently he played Astrov in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in the West End. He lives in New York.

Actors are quite well prepared for lockdown. When I left drama school, I had nearly 18 months of not working and me wondering: how do I get up every day and feel like I’m actually a human being that has a vocation?

I’m quite a socially distant person by nature. If I walk past a busy bar, I run a mile. If I walk into a restaurant and it’s empty, I think, oh, thank