Russell Tovey's life changed when he "came out as a geek"

He told The Guardian newspaper: "My life changed when I came out, but my life also changed when I came out as a geek and a nerd.

"Everything, the whole world, the whole universe, was open to me."

Of his niche hobbies, he admitted: "I was interested in all that, but would I tell anyone? Would I f***!"

Russell sought therapy to come to terms with his feelings about his sexuality and is thankful shows such as Heartstopper have offered hope to a new generation of LGBTQ+ young people.

He said: "They don't consider death whenever they meet someone and go to bed with them.

"It just doesn't enter their mind and that, to me, just seems so healthy. I've been so mixed up with it for so long, for so many years."

Asked if he had therapy, he added: "Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think everyone should have therapy when they leave school."

The 44-year-old actor's beloved French bulldog Rocky is his "best friend in the world" but at the age of 13, the pooch's health is in decline.

Explaining he had been woken at 4.30am by Rocky, Russell said: "He had a seizure. He's fine.

"He's completely deaf now. He's got one eye. He's in a [dog] pushchair. He has a little diaper...

"He's been my best friend in the world and he's seen me through so much. He's just been there."

Russell split from fiance Steve Brockman in 2023 but he is still hopeful of starting a family one day.

He said: [A baby is still an option] at some point. It's just me and Rocky at the moment."

The Plainclothes actor is an avid art collector and while his own attempts at photography were "s***", he still enjoys having fun with his camera.

He said: "I wanted to be Wolfgang Tillmans for a bit, so I bought an SLR camera and started taking pictures of my underwear hanging over a radiator, or socks on the stairs...

"That's the pressure we put on ourselves - like, if I'm not brilliant at this, why am I bothering? But you can do anything you want if you enjoy it. You haven't got to be great at it."