You went to an acting coach to help prepare you for the role, is that right? Yes, yes, an acting coach. The day before we start the guys come up to me and say, "We have this friend, he's an acting coach" - and I was like, "Oh dear god, they hate my work! I'm in trouble". So I said I'd love to and I told the guy when I showed up, but I had the best two hours and it really kind of changed, er...

I've been doing comedy for a long time and comedy has like a rhythm to it, like there's a metronome in the background. There's this dance step that you have to do. And he was very freeing to me. Here I am playing this multi-billionaire, narcissistic or at least indulgent man, and he was saying thing to me like, "Don't learn your lines, learn the other person's", or, "There are three sentences here, maybe you'll say one, you won't say the other two because you don't feel like it".

An attitude like that, this wonderful indulgent acting lets you be anywhere you want to be in a scene and that's kind of what a billionaire is like - "I can buy you, I don't have to play by your rules". So it was very liberating to talk about an acting style that was very freeing and was also appropriate. They also had me talk to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in New York and that was great because it allowed me to realise I could be them, I don't have to pretend. They came in all shapes and sizes, some like me and some not, and I believed them to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies because they said they were, not because they looked a certain way.

They also told me about a study that was done that showed a similarity between CEOs of large companies and sociopaths in prison. Obviously the CEOs had balancing factors whereas the sociopaths probably didn't but the similarity was that it was very hard for them to read the emotional impact they have on people. One of the CEOs knew this about himself and hired somebody to be with him at all times to tell him when he missed things because he just didn't know.

As an actor you read people all the time...
Yeah, I understand being narcissistic, we all do. We all understand fear and greed so it was very easy, and the writing was so good. They created scenes where you saw his humanity and his love for his family and his fear and his this and his that. By the time you get into the later episodes, you actually get the response that they love the character. They're horrified but at the same time they understand him. When you see someone's pain or narcissism you're more likely to go along with them than to tick them off as a category.

Were you offended by being sent to a coach in the first place?
You're giving me credit for thinking I'm any good! No, I, as an actor, fall into all the bad acting traps there are and I tend to try and see those traps in advance and remove them. The other thing this acting coach said, which was great, was that on film, all that truly matters is that you are really there in that split-second moment, being real to that moment and reacting to whatever it is. All that matters is that you are there and being creative in the moment - not showing your understanding of the story or your understanding of the character, just literally being present and enjoying yourself in the moment. It was very invigorating.

And then when you have great writing and great camera work too, that's when it all comes together. With Frobisher, I decided he knew what he was like a little. If you're as bad as he is and you don't see it, it's no fun. He knows he's a schmuck and he has fun with it.