Josh O’Connor doesn’t need to pretend he is “fun” now he’s 30

He said: “I’d been feeling this for a few years. But it was as if a switch flipped on my birthday and I realised that I don’t actually like clubbing, or hanging out in groups, or pretending to be cool.

“And overnight I decided I don’t have to like it. If I’m 30, I can be an adult and I can admit that I like one-to-one dynamics, and staying in and reading, and that’s who I am. It was a moment of permission.

“It has been my curse for such a long time, desperately pretending to be fun.”

Josh admitted he enjoyed the period of lockdown in the UK earlier this year because it gave him the chance to be at home more and undertake regular domestic tasks with his partner Margot Hauer-King.

He added in an interview with Guardian Weekend magazine: “I’m never normally at home for any length of time. I’m always away on jobs, or coming back late from jobs. And just having the chance to cook, and being at home with my partner, it was kind of a dream come true.

“From a purely personal and interior point of view, I loved it, and I don’t feel ashamed in saying that.”

Meanwhile, though Josh would find it "damning" if his career ended because audiences associated him too strongly with playing Prince Charles in 'The Crown', he insisted he wouldn't be "disappointed".

He said: “If my career ends tomorrow, and everyone says: ‘We just couldn’t buy him as anything else but Prince Charles’, well, it would be a bit damning. But I wouldn’t be so disappointed. I’ve had a good run.”