The Bafta-winning actor on Four Lions, Enola Holmes and why he spent lockdown retracing his family history – and trampoliningI don’t know if it’s the heat – it’s 35C on the late summer day we meet for lunch at an outside table at the Canton Arms on south London’s busy Lambeth Road – but there’s an enjoyable sort of maziness to conversation with Adeel Akhtar.
He prefaces nearly every response to a direct question by saying, “I don’t know if this is a connected thought at all”, or “I’m going to answer that by talking about something else entirely”.
The lightly evasive manner fits with Akhtar’s beguiling screen presence, you can never quite pin him down; his resting face is a mournful tragic mask, which means he is capable of generous comedy as well as convincing pathos and despair.
He’s stolen tons of scenes on film and TV,
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