What's been the biggest change to your life since you got the role?

TE / I’ve got Colin Firth’s number in my phone! ... In terms of being taken under anyone’s wing it was probably Colin because we spent the most time together. He and I chatted a lot outside of work. He was always texting me to make sure I was okay, or any advice I needed. Colin really guided me throughout the whole process. He was super cool. (c)

SPLICED / It’s an interesting dynamic with Taron Egerton. You play his mentor on screen and off screen, too, he’s a young actor working with a very experienced actor. How did he do?

CF / He blew me away. There are young people coming out of drama schools, or out of wherever, who seem to be equipped in ways that I wasn’t. I’ve been wondering about it. I see musicians in school now, with voices like Delta bluesmen, and guitar skills, which would have been unimaginable, apart from a tiny few, when I was a schoolboy. Whether some things are just inherited down through the ether, and what we hear and see, or whether the DNA of the best is what’s passing down – I don’t know what it is. Obviously I think Taron was a bit nervous to have so much on his shoulders, but I couldn’t believe that he was able to carry it with such aplomb, and I just found myself marvelling at it. I was also working with Michael Caine, and there’s the same age gap there as I have with Taron, and I was learning just as much from Taron as I was from Michael Caine – different things, in different ways. ... There’s nothing like working with an actor who’s just so real in front of you, who’s got so many nuances and so much texture to what they’re doing, that you raise your game. That’s what I had with Taron. (c)