Tower of London | Canterbury | actor | KISS FM | Fine Arts College

"I moved to London to finish my studies and go to drama school. My dad drove me up, and I stayed with family friends. On my first night, I put on London radio stations. I remember waking up my first morning and thinking about all my friends in Canterbury who were probably at the same boarding school, and, wow, here I was listening to KISS FM. In Canterbury, it was like invective radio. And I remember thinking, Wow, this is cool. I'm in London and I'm listening to great music on London radio. I had dreams of being an actor, and the National Youth Theatre, which is an amateur dramatics company based in London, was something that I joined initially. I also finished my education at the Fine Arts College in North London, did theater, photography, and sculpture - subjects that weren't available to me at school in Kent. I felt that if I wanted to be an actor, London was the best place to start. I lived there for seven years until I left to do Lord of the Rings.

"I consider London my home. I pine for it. I find myself more often than not in America, predominantly L.A., so I feel homesick for London. I think it's the energy. It was so liberating. Nobody was judging you. You could dress however you liked. You could really just be essentially who you wanted to be. I remember when I was a child we'd occasionally go up to London on the weekend. We'd go to the theater and grab something to eat, or we'd go shopping on Oxford Street or along the Kings Road. So I had a connection with London, because it's only about an hour and a half from Canterbury. I remember going to the Tower of London, too, and seeing the Crown Jewels. They're all there in a case, and then there are the Beefeater men, who are there to guard the jewels.