I've got it already. He's Plan B's mate, isn't he? Boom!

Another urban "yoof" film - terribly clichéd, isn't it? Skrein reckons his generation has been misrepresented in the cinema so far. "It's all white cockney films or black urban films, isn't it?" But, he says, Ill Manors, directed by his friend Ben Drew (aka Plan B), gives "a more realistic picture of what's going on in London".

What's his past? The bad boy come good, he almost died in a stabbing when he was 17 ("I was looking for trouble"). He turned his life around by becoming an MC (two albums to date), coaching sports and working with kids in the local community.

Why acting? Ben got him into it, didn't he? But his performance is so convincing that the director of his next project The Sweeney (with Damian Lewis) cast him without an audition after seeing a few early screen rushes.

Will he keep working? He harbours "no real ambitions" for acting. "I like having my back against the wall and doing things I'm not supposed to be good at."

Has he got an attitude problem? He "lost his ego" some time ago, apparently.

He says: "You can be powerful without being loud and aggressive."

We say: You can be powerful while also being sexy.

Ill Manors is in cinemas now