Above all else, Bob Hoskins has always been his own man.

Having quite literally staggered into an acting career when accompanying a friend to an audition and finding himself - several pints to the good - landing the lead role, he was as good as air-lifted into the thespian life.  For some years afterwards, the sturdy, jellied eel-vowelled Londoner would be offered "suggestions" that he might benefit from elocution classes.

"I just thought, "What?  Learn to talk like I don't?  Be like I'm not?  Who the fuck am I then?'"

By remaining doggedly individual, Hoskins went on to become - almost tracing the steps of his cinematic soul brother Michael Caine - one of the UK's finest screen actors.   Initially, he insists, he only ever sought film or television work because he thought that it would guarantee him a lifetime of employment in the theatre.   Instead, of course, he wound up with a near-iconic status in the lineage of British cinema, his influence undeniably informing some of the key performances in LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS which, incidentally, he thought was "lavvelly."

His own widescreen breakthrough came in 1980 as the apoplectic, raging Harold Shand in THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY and - despite weathering the dangers of the perma-working film actor that inevitably led to best-forgotten work such as SUPER MARIO BROTHERS - his near 20-year film career has yielded many highlights: the slowly-fraying George in MONA LISA; Cher's unlikely love interest in MERMAIDS, and most recently, Darcy, the luckless boxing coach in TWENTYFOURSEVEN.

Hoskins meets Empire in a lavish second-floor suite in the Park Lane Hotel on Piccadilly, two hours before he will "pocket" his Lifetime Achievement Award.   On arrival, however, he's more interested in marveling at the generous dimensions of the shower cubicle.  Then, parking himself on the sofa, he will prove in turns witty, wary ("What the fack are you on about?"), fleetingly earnest and hugely entertaining.

You stumbled into acting because you were drunk, didn't you?

Well it wasn't 'cause I was drunk, but I was drunk and I suppose that helped.  A mate of mine was interested in amateur dramatics and I went with him to an audition.  I was waiting for him at the bar - and he'd got his part - and they came down and said, "You're next."  So I sort of went up and read it and they gave me the lead.

You'd never considered acting before?

Well, y'know, daydreams and all that.  I suppose I've always been sort of artistic.  I used to paint and sculpt and stuff when I was a kid and I used to write.   But it's very much on your own, y'know, and it's quite lonely.  Acting's a collective artform really.

You spent some time employed as a fire-eater and escape artist...

Yeah.  A group of us had a mate who opened up a circus theatre and asked us if we'd want to get involved.  It was like, "Yeah I'll 'ave some of that."   It was fire-eating and escapology and clowning.  I wasn't very good at the escapology.  There was a couple that were and I used to handcuff 'em and tie 'em up in a sack and chain 'em and throw 'em in a tank of water.  (Laughs)  I wasn't that good.  I think I got in the tank twice, but I weren't comfortable with it.  I was better at the fire-eating.

Any important tips in that department?

Well, avoid it.  If you want a sex life, forget it, 'cause you stink of turps all the time.  It's 'orrible.

THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY was voted by Empire as the Best British Movie of All Time.  Does that surprise you?

Well, I think, as Michael Caine says, there's been three gangster films come out of England.  One he made, one I made and we both made the third one.  So I can see that.  But since then, there's been so much really good gangster stuff that to me it seems a bit old hat now.

When you were making THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, was there any sense on-set that this was an important film?

You knew it was different.  But, like, you can never tell how anything will turn out.  You can never tell really how it's gonna be accepted.  Then you can be doing something else and thinking, I'm bored to fuck and - bosh! - it takes off.  But you're thinking, "This is despite of me 'cause I haven't done anything."  I was bored and in the end I feel a bit of a fraud, y'know what I mean?  But it's an individual thing.  You see one film and it disappears and a couple of years later it comes back as the best thing ever.  You think, "Hang on, why wasn't it recognised in the first place?"  Films have their time and I think THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY came in at its time and hit a chord...like THE FULL MONTY.   Look at BLADE RUNNER.  When it came out, it didn't do a penny.  Went straight down the pan.  A year later it took off as one of the best science fiction films going.

Did you worry that you would forever be typecast into these villainous roles?   The British Joe Pesci?

Nah.  People talk about the British Joe Pesci, but look at all Joe Pesci's done.   People always think I play gangsters, but y'know, how many films have I made?   Gawd knows...and I've played three gangsters in all that time and one of them weren't even a gangster, he was just a sort of idiot.

Was the vulnerability of George in MONA LISA difficult to achieve?

Not really, because I never approached that film as a gangster film.  It's a love story.  It was about two people who desperately needed each other, but couldn't make it through the experience, the guy survives and the woman doesn't.

You've always displayed a strong on-screen chemistry with women.  Do you see that as being a major strength?

Maybe.  I must admit that some of the best times onscreen I've ever had are with women.  See, I learned to act through watching women.  I hadn't had any training at all and suddenly I was a professional actor, thinking, "I've got to learn how to do this."  So I started to watch actors, but I wasn't learning anything.   Then I started to watch women.  Like, drama is about private moments that we don't express.  That's why we pay to go and see them...To see people's private moments.  Men are useless in expressing those feelings.  Women have an emotional honesty and integrity which men haven't got.  It's got nothing to do with femininity, it's just an honesty.  Also there's this strange thing of men, even actors, not liking to show that they're capable of very, very deep affection...because it's vulnerable.  So for a bloke, especially looking like me, to show it, I suppose it's a bit more unusual.

Conversely, it must be spirit-sapping to be in the middle of filming and then realise that the project is rapidly becoming a turkey.

Ooh!  (Winces)  That's the worst feeling on earth.  It's only really happened to me once and that was on SUPER MARIO BROTHERS.  From the first day of rehearsals, it went downhill and got worse.  I can't start slagging people off but it was just completely wrong.  Arrogance had been mistaken for talent and people just didn't know what they were doing.  I know it had to compete with JURASSIC PARK but as a film, with the original script and the original intent, it could've stood up.  Instead, it was the most depressing thing I've ever done in my life.   Appalling.

You've described Hollywood as "the asylum of the world."

Oh yeah.  I used to think that people like me, eventually they got put away.   Then I came into this business and realised where they put 'em.  Everybody in this business is barmy.  There's no two ways about it, they're completely potty.   I'm not just talking about the actors...All of them.  If you go to Hollywood, this madness is God, so in the asylum, you're allowed to be Napoleon.  In Hollywood, it's not all onscreen, there's far more going on off screen.  You'll be like "Who the fuck is that?" and someone'll say, "Oh that's Bruce Willis' cleaner."

Have you developed defensive tactics for dealing with difficult directors?

Well, yeah.  Either a right-hander or you walk off!  If they get that out of order.  Fuck it.  What's the point?

Seriously?  Have you ever given a director a slap?

No no, course not.  But you've got to treat going on set the same as anything else.  Sometimes there's reasons and you can see what's happened.  But sometimes you know it's the only way this guy is gonna get it up.  And if that happens, I think, fine.  But when somebody's deliberately being cruel or abusing their power...

What's the best bit of directing advice you've received?

Robert Zemeckis was great.  In the middle of ROGER RABBIT, I suddenly had to direct THE RAGGEDY RAWNEY.  You can imagine, I had weasels coming out of the wall and I had to direct a film in Czechoslovakia.  I said to him, "How the fuck do I go about directing a film?"  He said (adopts laid-back US tone) "Well Bob, there's two kinds of directors.  There's good directors, there's bad directors and both of them can be assholes.  You can direct or you can be an asshole.  But a lot of assholes have made a lot of good movies..."

You've worked with both Spielberg and Coppola.  Lasting impressions?

Well, Steven's extraordinary. He's the last one who's aware of who he is.  I mean, he's a really nice bloke.  Coppola's extraordinary as well, though.   He's completely unaware of what's going on around him.  He's got these ideas...Like he'll say, "Can we squirt blood up on the chandelier?" and there's a roomful of two thousand people waiting to do their thing.

You played J. Edgar Hoover in NIXON.  In your honest opinion, has Oliver Stone really suffered a bit of a humour bypass?

A bit, yeah.  But I liked him.  Plus, he was working with Tony Hopkins, so I didn't get to see him under normal circumstances.  He's probably used to working with American actors that get very involved and it's all very intense.  Now Tony is a daydreaming Welshman, he's away with the fairies.  He's lovely, but nothing's gonna faze him.  You ask him to do something and it's like - bosh! bang! - he'll do it better than you even dreamed of.  Then he'll come back and say, (Whispered, semi-detached Welsh) "'S that all right?  Fine."  There's no tension or no problem at all.  People were saying about Oliver, "What's the matter with him?  He's going around like a Buddhist monk.  He's so happy."   With Tony, he was well passive.  But when I was gonna do Hoover, I said to Oliver, "I think I should do it in a tutu."  He said, "You think so Bob?"  So I turned up on the set and he had all these tutus laid out for me and I had to say "Oliver...I was joking." He was like, "What?  That was funny?"   It's like, "Well, it was meant to be..."