Stage Bar | George Lang | Johnny Rhys-Meyers | food

What's the big-deal restaurant? "Gundel. The owner is George Lang [who also owns Café des Artistes in New York], and we went there for the first gathering of the cast of The Lion in Winter. It's a beautiful restaurant. They kept it open for us, and the orchestra stayed and serenaded us, and it was kind of the beginning of our bonding as a company. So I have hugely fond memories of Gundel. There's also Bagolyvár, another restaurant owned by Lang that serves only Hungarian food. All of the waitresses and cooks are women. It's very elegant. Bagolyvár isn't quite as formal; it's a country chalet type. It has a wonderful menu of Hungarian peasant food - goulashes and fish dishes."

Where else would the cast go after work? "We loved this little bar called the Sixtus Bar. It's on one of the back streets of Pest. It's like an actors' bar, a great little hangout, kind of down and dirty. You can go and play backgammon and chess. We also loved the Stage Bar, where we'd go and do karaoke. That was great. It's just a good old bar. I mean, when you're hanging out with British guys, you find out where all the good pubs are, so there was the Irish Cat Pub, where they went to watch their football. But the Stage Bar just really has a great atmosphere. Either once a month or once every two weeks they have karaoke, and so we'd all go there, and Johnny Rhys-Meyers would bring down the house doing 'Sweet Home Alabama.' And then some Hungarian guy would get up, and then I'd get up and do a duet with Johnny, and it was just really fun. The Hungarians have a great esprit, a great spirit. They love laughing."

What's your favorite Budapest memory?