‘He skitters boyishly off into the afternoon, waving brightly. I realise too late I forgot to sniff him to find out if he has a personal odour.’

‘He has wiry features as though he had been put on the rack and pulled gently for a few minutes.’

‘Whishaw looks coyly at his ravioli.’

‘…the slight, floppy-maned, somewhat effete boy-whippet…’

‘He has a very low hairline which his thick brown hair erupts from, first going one way, then another, and then back again, with the overall effect looking weirdly like an enormous Mr Whippy ice cream.’

And here we are in what I like to call the ‘Three Hamlets’ scene: three famous Hamlets all on screen together at the same time. We have Ben Whishaw who was a very young Hamlet, and Rory Kinnear who was a very intelligent Hamlet, and Ralph Fiennes who was a very fast Hamlet. Ralph, of course, on Broadway, Rory Kinnear at the National Theatre, and Ben Whishaw at the Old Vic. And all of them great performances. I teased them about this when we were doing the scene: I said they were slumming it doing commercial movies and then they said ‘and so are you’.