The national treasure is turning toxic masculinity on its head as Lee in new Sky Original, Mr Bigstuff. Previously best known for his role of Mick Carter on EastEnders, the star is now ready to give comedy a go.

Lee would like to consider himself an Alpha Male type – bolshy, loud-mouthed, and an infinite nuisance to his brother, Glen (played by Ryan Sampson).

So when he crash-lands into his brother’s life, Lee promises to bring chaos with him, even when he’s trying to run from his past.

“Yeah, for sure. I’m assuming I am Arnie?”

“Ryan’s got the touch of the DeVito’s about him, hasn’t he?”

“I would say it is about masculinity, different kinds of masculinity. It’s about two brothers who love each other but don’t quite know how to express it. Two very different brothers trying to make their way in the world, struggling with their own, sort of, flaws and insecurities.”

“They’re two brothers that if you almost put them together, they could potentially be the perfect man.”

“Masculinity is an archetype, isn’t it, of what men are and what men bring to the table. I think masculinity can be quite a beautiful thing if it – it’s all about intent for me.”

“I understand that there’s certainly toxic masculinity out there, and you can maybe push masculinity too far but in general, it’s a good thing for the world, masculinity. The difference between men and women, it’s important that we’re so different and opposite.”

“I loved Lee. This was my first real, sort of, chance to get involved with comedy. Ryan wrote this amazing character for me, and it was a real gift. It is something he told me that he’d been thinking about for a long time, and he wanted me to be playing the role of Lee. I never quite knew what he meant, and then he wrote it and sent it to me, and I was just so excited about him.”

“Lee is really loveable. He’s got a good heart. He takes no s off nobody. He’s one of them with no filter, so if it’s on his mind he will speak it. He doesn’t conform to the way society – especially British society – we’re a bit too polite. If he feels someone is taking the p or is being out of order, he will say it and he will say it loud and proud.”

“But he’s obviously got his own issues. He’s got issues with his mental health and opening up about his feelings and all that sort of stuff, hence why Lee and Glen need each other because Glen needs to bring out more of his masculine side whereas Lee certainly needs to start opening up about what’s going on inside his f***ing brain.”

“I think as an actor you just always want to be working and you always feel grateful that you get a job. No one owes any of us a career as actors. As much as I loved EastEnders and it was so good for me and my career, and the people there – it really did put me on a different kind of platform and open my audience up to dare I say it, older ladies, and children.”

“It was a chance for me, and I was blessed with a great character [Mick Carter] on it. So, you roll the dice, and I felt that I’d done the job and I’d done it for nine years and done the best I possibly could.”

“But I was always quite hungry and ambitious to try other stuff, and the thing about being in a soap is, you don’t get that opportunity. I rolled the dice and then this came along, and I thought, oh wow, this is totally different from the character of Mick, and something that people have never really seen me do before.”

“Going back to EastEnders, as much as I loved it, it’s all quite dark and depressing and heavy stuff, so as much as I love acting and going to work, you know, that sort of stuff can really start playing on your brain, whereas this is a joy. To be on a set where everyone’s laughing, it’s a different kind of energy. I would love to push it further, this comedy thing, if I get an opportunity.”

“I’m very excited about this. I’m proud of what I’ve done, and I’m grateful to Ryan for trusting me. I love Ryan. We worked together on Plebs many moons ago, and I was fascinated by how f***ing brilliant he is and how he manages to, sort of, slip under the radar as an actor, which I know that he loves, but the fact he is such a talented writer and he’s got these relationships locked down within this show. You know, it’s really important that you buy into this world, and you believe us, basically.”

“You’ve got to find the truth within it and if you’re invested, you’ll laugh your b* off. I don’t give a f* who you are, you can’t deny this is so funny.”

“He would give me a little tweak here and there, a little note, because, obviously, he knows Lee better than anybody. He wanted me to do my thing and own him, but also he’d go, ‘I saw him this way,’ and I totally agreed with him on most occasions. That helped me a lot. Me and him, it’s about relying on each other to sell it. It’s a pretty dysfunctional f***ing family we’re a part of, and you know, it will be very interesting if we go again [for a second series] to see, potentially, our father. I won’t give too much away, but he’s a constant throughout it and we never meet him. It’d be great to see who spawned the pair of us.”

“I immediately think of Ray Winstone. He’s a friend of mine. If he’s around, I don’t see why he wouldn’t. I think if we’ve already got this in the can, he watches it and we go, ‘Here, watch that, do you fancy being a part of it?’ I think he’d be a great addition.”

“She’s just so funny, lovely, natural, a good person to be around. Like all us actors, she has that little insecurity thing going on, which we need. We’re not quite completely comfortable in our own skin. She’s really quite vocal about that, and I think that her vulnerability comes across so well. Being a part of that little threesome was such fun.”

“When I read this big elaborate f***ing spoon playing thing, I was like, how are we going to do this?! You know, we haven’t got much time. We had a week rehearsal. But I think that [scene] for me, after me and Ryan put the work in. We had a great choreographer, and we had a guy come in who plays the spoons, and then we added that all together. That might be my favourite scene because I had a lot of fear around it. Then I watched it and thought, it works, I believe that these two were doing this at talent shows in 1994.That scene, but also, I do love the big tear-up in Carpet World, me and Ryan fighting with this great big tube because I’m trying to help [Glen] with his erection, and the way we try to solve it is smashing each other up with these [rolled-up carpet] tubes. F***ing brilliant. I’ve got to tell you there wasn’t a bad day on set. I enjoyed every f***ing moment doing that.”

“They all went well actually. It was a well-run set, good people working on it. We all believed in the project. It was [filmed] during winter, so there were a few scenes outside, which were freezing.”

“He does wear some odd clothes does Lee, walking about in pink women’s pyjama bottoms and Doc Marten boots and a leather jacket and vest underneath – that was a bit of a challenge. But it works, the look works. It shouldn’t, but it does. Me bowling around in women’s sunglasses and stuff. I was honoured to be able to do that [laughs].”

“I don’t think I’d have the a***hole to wear it. But it does say a lot about somebody that – again, masculinity – who owns who he is and what he wears. It is a bit weird that he’s borrowing Kirsty’s dressing gown and stuff, but again it just adds another element and depth to the character, that he feels comfortable walking around in a kimono.”

“It is a lovely garment... Lee thinks he can pull it off, and he does.”

“Well, I get offered to do Strictly ever year, and it’s not for me. I’m far too lazy. I’ve got no desire to be mincing around in sequins. I think we had a week. As much as we’d sit around talking about the script and stuff, we would dedicate a lot of the day to the dancing stuff.”

“We wanted it to be really quite out there and child-like as well. It couldn’t be too polished, but it had to be that we were in sync. Every day we would spend the morning on the dance... so yeah, I think about five days, we got it locked down.”

“Chuck a few forks in the mix, why not? You can go where you want with this f***ing show!”

“One of the highlights for me was working with Geoff Bell, whose somebody I’ve been making films with for many years. We were in one of my most successful films, The Business, and I haven’t worked with him since, really. We’ve got this one scene. I go see him in a sunbed shop – Steve Diamond he plays – and we have this big fight scene where he’s naked. It was great because I love the man, and it’s been too long. For me and him to have this big four, five-page scene where he f***ing hates me – well, he hates me in most things that we do actually.”

“It was a hard scene, you know, where he’s rolling around on the floor with his c* out, and I’m trying to get the keys to get out the door.”

“I can’t remember the last time I watched a show where there’s a shot of a squished todger against a window.”

“And a tiny little winkle as well. It wasn’t Geoff ’s winkle by the way. We did have a man come in especially to get his tiny winkle out, which is very honourable of him, I must say.”

“Ryan set it in Loughton, where I live, but we never actually filmed anywhere in Loughton. We filmed it around Dagenham. Interestingly, I just done my movie Marching Powder, again, in Dagenham. There’s a lot of filming going on round there. It’s quite rare to do a job and be able to go home every night, so that really helps.”

“Dagenham’s a fascinating place, good people. We got a lot of love. We shot at the old Ford for a bit, this amazing – it’s like a f***ing town in itself, where they make the old motors and stuff. I always love working in London. I’m such a Londoner at heart. And it’s so rare that you get to work in London because it’s so expensive and difficult to film. To branch out and go to Dagenham and Essex was great. I’ve got a lot of fans out that way and they always treat me with love and respect.”

“We didn’t really need to do any improv. It was all there in the script... Lee being quite crass, as he is, he does speak his mind, obviously, he does love – a bit like myself – the word c*, and if it’s used in the right way, then it should be celebrated.”

“There’s nothing better than an exquisitely deployed swear word.”

“I’ve had some mad encounters with fans. I get a lot of love and a bit of obsession. I’ve had some mad requests. I’ve had people sending me a pen and paper through the post and asking me to draw round my hands and feet, which I oblige and send back. F* knows what they do with it, why they wanted it, but that was quite a weird one [laughs].”

“I knew it was you!”

“I learnt a lot when I went into EastEnders in terms of pace and speed and organically making a scene work as you go along, multi-cam, four cameras and stuff like that. That was a revelation to me. Having to learn 30 pages a day as well, that’s difficult. But I probably learned the most from being on stage, being with Harold Pinter, who really did take me under his wing and showed me a whole different style of acting and dialogue and the way conversation – it’s like a tennis match between two people.”

“There’s something about being on stage live every single night, eight shows a week, where you’ve really got to be switched on constantly, nowhere to hide. I know a lot of actors, they avoid it like the plague because of fear or whatever, but I feel like you do need to experience being on stage and trying to win over an audience.”

“I’ve been around a long time, mate, 30-odd years, and I’ve done over 40 films, and I’ve worked with a lot of people. Some s***, some brilliant... I learned the most when I was 17 from an actor called Mark Rylance. I didn’t know who this man was. I did a thing called Loving with him and it was set in the Second World War. He played a butler, and I played his pantry boy.”

“I remember watching this man. He used to walk around with a Dictaphone – that’s how f***ing long ago it was – and I used to watch how he switched into character. He was quite a shy man in real life, couldn’t really hold people’s attention, but as soon as the word ‘Action’ was said, he was the most powerful f***er in the room, with real presence. I always took that with me... he was better than any three years at drama school, getting to work with him for seven weeks.”

“It’s a tricky one that. The obvious one is I’d love to play James Bond, you know, a cockney Bond, or I would like to maybe have a go at Doctor Who, something that’s been played by many different actors before and put my own spin on it, my own take on it. But ultimately, I’m still searching for what that ultimate role would be.”

“I’ve been blessed with some really good characters over the years. Maybe portraying someone. I don’t know who that would be. I managed to do that once years ago in a play called Kurt and Sid, where I played Sid Vicious. I was a lot younger then to be fair because he died when he was 21, 22. To portray somebody and put my take on it was really exciting, and it was a f***ing great play as well. So, maybe portraying somebody.”

“I don’t know who the f* that is because I’m pushing 50 now, but I’m sure there’s something out there.”

“TV turn-on? I’m going to go down the route of live sport. I get very excited about watching West Ham... and turn- off would be University Challenge with [ex-host] Jeremy Paxman. I couldn’t think of anything worse than watching that bs.”

“There are far too many clever people on the telly. They should do it but with really thick people, then it would be a f***ing good show.”