The Hour

He’s played the part of legendary Beatle John Lennon in Backbeat, and Harry Potter baddie Professor Quirrell, and now Ian Hart is returning to the big screen as a wayward father, in his latest movie, A Boy Called Dad.

The moving film follows a boy who becomes a dad at a young age, and finds himself totally out of his depth, without any real father figure to look up to for guidance.

And it’s a role that Hart really got his teeth into. Speaking a bit more about the movie, the actor said: "It’s called A Boy Called Dad, and the dad in question is not me, it’s actually the kid. The kid fathers basically a child at a very young age, has no idea what to do, he’s not with the woman who is the mother of the child.

“But then he sees the baby and decides because it’s in a bad place, to steals the baby…he goes on a road trip and through that journey he kind of learns how to be a father, he grows up, he learns how important it is."

Ian added: “What he didn’t have was a father of his own because I was his dad and was not particularly good at my job, so there’s an attempt to reconcile…he teaches me how to be a dad, he teaches his own father what the responsibilities of fatherhood and childhood respectively are.”

It’s a challenging role with an important message, but that’s all in a day’s work for the esteemed actor, whose acting pedigree would impress even the fussiest film buff.

And his laid-back attitude and refusal to get caught up in the hype of Hollywood, is apparent for all to see. Speaking about being involved in Harry Potter – one of the biggest movies series in recent years – Ian admitted that he didn’t even know anything about the wizard tales before he appeared in the first movie, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

He said: “I didn’t know anything about it, I’d never read the books, so I went to Waterstones just before the audition…and I was flicking through it and though ‘it can’t be much of a part’ - I never saw my name once. It was the wrong book, I’d bought book two! So I went into the audition thinking ‘well it’s no big deal, relax, I wont’ get uptight about it!’.”

A Boy Called Dad hits cinemas on April 30 this year. Are you a movie buff? Check out stv.tv’s special film section.