The 5-Minute Interview: Dominic Cooper, Actor

Dominic Cooper, 27, trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He played Dakin, a schoolboy, in the film adaptation of Alan Bennett's 'The History Boys', released on DVD this week.

If I weren't talking to you right now I'd be...

Lying in a pool of brown water on set, pretending to be drowning in sewage. I'm in the middle of filming The Escapist.

A phrase I use far too often is...

"A dream". I say it all the time if I'm happy about something. My 1989 Arsenal strip that I found recently... "a dream".

I wish people would take more notice of...

How good things are and how much worse they could be. It frustrates me that we are such cynics in this country.

The most surprising thing that happened to me was...

Ejaculating for the first time.

A common misperception of me is...

That I'm sleeping my way to mediocrity.

I'm good at...

Complaining in restaurants despite my disdain for cynics.

I'm very bad at...

Making decisions and remaining calm when I get lost driving. I drove to the wrong church for my cousin's wedding recently. I wasn't calm but the church was a dream.

In moments of weakness...

I blame cynics for everything.

You know me as an actor but in truer life I'd have been...

The lead singer of my band Dagmar. We played a fusion of Chick Corea and Duran Duran. For some reason we weren't very popular at school.

In a nutshell, my philosophy is this:

Be content with what you have, if it isn't meant to happen, you'll get over it.

Nina Lakhani