Warning: Bob Hoskins is not the cheeky chappie he seems. In fact, he is the rudest, most disagreeable person I've interviewed. He may preach that "it's good to talk" in those irritating BT adverts, but chattiness - or indeed, social graces of any kind - are not in evidence during our encounter.

This was not what I had expected. I was a Hoskins fan; I liked his down-to-earth, no-nonsense demeanour and admired his acting skills. But after meeting him I discovered that the real man is a long way from his good-hearted image.This contrast is particularly disarming since the purpose of the interview is to discuss Hoskins's role as the affable Mr Micawber in the BBC's £3m Christmas Day spectacular David Copperfield. The two-part drama, which also stars Dame Maggie Smith, Michael Elphick, Dawn French and Pauline Quirke, will pass the time very nicely twixt turkey and bed. I just wish I could have talked to the jolly Mr Micawber ("Something will turn up") rather than sulky Hoskins.

We must be fair. Hoskins's horrible mood on the day we meet is due in no small measure to his scenes overrunning their estimated finishing time by several hours. But at least Hoskins has done his waiting in his warm personal trailer, whisked to and from the set in solitary splendour by his own driver. I have got cold and wet. After much nail-biting - at one point Hoskins refuses to talk to me at all - I am ushered into the presence.

The star of Mona Lisa, Mermaids (with Cher) and a lead player in Oliver Stone's Nixon is small, barrel-like, grey and pacing around his caravan like a caged animal. He doesn't bother to say "Hello", but instead: "I've got a dinner party to go to, I've gotta go now." Eventually, with bad grace, he does sit down - emanating truculence like a thwarted toddler.

As we begin to talk, the situation does not improve. Many of my questions are met with monosyllabic responses - some elicit no answer at all. His behaviour seems both unprofessional and counterproductive. After all, I am not just here to please myself; by insulting me he is being rude to every Sunday Times reader who might be interested in him or David Copperfield. He is an actor - surely he could act charming for a while. Not doing so is, to put it mildly, not very intelligent.

I start by asking why he decided to work for BBC1 again for the first time since he was in Dennis Potter's Pennies from Heaven in 1978. There is a silence. Then he says gruffly, "It's a favourite book, it's something I've always liked and ..." after a long pause, "um, it was a chance to work with Imelda (Staunton, who appeared with him in Guys and Dolls) and Maggie (Smith, his co-star from Spielberg's Hook) again - it's a load of old mates."

After a bit more coaxing he tells me he had a "bit of a Dickens period" when he was about 15 and "read David Copperfield as a boy, it's one of Dickens's best. Micawber is like Dickens's dad, so it's an honour to play him". Since Hoskins was born in 1942 and grew up in Finsbury Park, north London, "on the street", with few books and no money, that he read Dickens at all is something of a miracle.

Playing in a costume drama for BBC1, living in Hampstead, hanging out in Hollywood, does Hoskins still consider himself to be working class? "I wouldn't even bother to answer that, meself," he says, looking at me with disgust. I explain that this isn't some class hang-up of mine (for that is what he is implying) but part of a national debate. What, for instance, does he think of John Prescott's claim to be middle class?

For a moment he seems stumped. "I, I, I ... I'm not concerned with the way people see me, or what class they think I am, I'm concerned with how I see them. What people's impression of me is I haven't got the faintest idea about and I couldn't care less. I just want to do the things I want to do. I'm an entertainer."

Such disdain for image from a Hollywood star beggars belief. An actor for 20 years, I don't believe he is that naive. So I ask whether, like his "old mate" Dame Maggie Smith, he would fancy being Sir Bob Hoskins?

"Neeergh," he sneers.

Okay, I say, would he turn down a knighthood if it was offered?

"Yeah, I would," he grimaces. "I've suffered from the class system all my life. They hear my accent and lock up the servants, send the women upstairs."

This is typical Hoskins chippiness and just not true. For starters, no woman I know would be sent upstairs because a visitor had a cockney accent and anyway, he is now a household name and more powerful than legions of toffs with plummy voices. Despite my objections, however, he scoffs, "that still goes on, yeah. I would never aspire to a title, eeergh. It's a disgrace. Also, my wife Linda would hate to be a lady and what would I say to the Indian fella in my local shop? He'd just take the piss out of me."

So am I to assume that Hoskins is one cockney who does not support the monarchy? "Yeah," he says gleefully, "I'd like to see the whole royal family abolished. We should get rid of the lot of them. I just can't see the point of them all any more, the whole thing is a joke. They're meant to stand for the church - but every one of them has had a divorce. And the future king is a bloody Buddhist. Of course it's a bloody joke."

His tone is so heated and aggressive that I head him back to Mr Micawber. Is it strange for him to be playing such a likeable chap after all those villains? "I've played very few gangsters," he answers grumpily, "but some people always remember me for gangster films." I can see why. He generates such a menacing atmosphere around him that it is like talking to the gang boss he played in The Long Good Friday. I almost wonder whether he might go for my jugular with a broken bottle.

Even when we move on to more trivial matters - such as why he is choosing to work less often in Hollywood - his challenging tack persists. "I just prefer working elsewhere, all right?" he growls. "You go to Hollywood for fame and fortune," he adds, staring at me crossly. "You don't go to Hollywood for art and once you've got your fame and fortune - especially the fortune in the bank - you can do what you want to do. It's basically 'f***-you' money." A hard smile plays around his lips. "I've got that now. I've made my f***-you money in Hollywood, and now I've got the hell out. I've done it and now I can do what I like."

He glares at me, daring me to challenge him. "These days, I'll do anything that interests me and I've got enough money in the bank that I can pick and choose."

So, I say, what if he was offered the BT adverts again now (they have just won Marketing magazine's award for the most memorable campaign of the 1990s). "I'd turn them down. Yeah," he says. "They were good when they started but after a while they were bloody awful, people got bored. They would come up to me in the street and say, 'If I see you saying 'it's good to talk' one more time on the telly, I'll come round your house and hit you' - that's very boring. I did it for the money, of course. You don't think I'd do commercials for art?"

He looks at me as if I am an incompetent henchman who needs to be taught a lesson. It is most unnerving. I am only trying to do my job and the lateness of the hour is not my fault. In his contempt for people around him, I'm afraid Bob Hoskins is becoming rather like the arrogant aristocrats he claims to so despise. A big man bullying the little people; he should be ashamed of himself.

I am surprised by this, because friends who know him claim that he is "charming", "funny", a "darling" in private. Yet in a way, his bad temper is a relief. Hoskins is well known for simply recycling the same anecdotes. Today, he is so cross that his remarks are much more revealing; I would never have guessed he was so nasty.

I see a slightly nicer side when I ask him what he does like doing with all his money. "Cooking," he says grumpily. "I cook with Linda. All kinds of stuff, mostly Moroccan at the moment."

Linda, his second wife, has been a bit of a saviour for him. They met in 1980 after he had a breakdown following the collapse of his first marriage, which finished in 1978. In those two intervening years, he lived in a van, felt guilty about "walking away from the kids" (his two children from his first marriage) and is said to have been in a state of rage at the world. (Some things never change.)

Towards the end of our time together, he says: "I'm going to take a well earned holiday, spend some time with Linda and the kids." I hope a bit of time off puts him in a better mood for the new millennium. Meanwhile, enjoy his Mr Micawber - but don't forget, the real Hoskins is a very different kind of fellow.