My Secret Life: Matthew Horne, Actor & comedian, 31

(David Sandison )

My parents were ... kind, caring, and not too nosy. My mother, Glenis, was a nursery nurse, and ended up working as a special-needs' class assistant. My father, Brian, was the manager of a lace factory in Nottingham.

The house I grew up in ... was modest.

When I was a child I wanted to be ... a footballer. Still do.

If I could change one thing about myself ... it would be my pigeon chest.

You wouldn't know it but I'm very good at ... cooking. I make very good risottos. At my house you can have any risotto you like, but beetroot is my signature dish.

You may not know it but I'm no good at ... I suppose I wouldn't mind being a better swimmer. I can actually swim but I hate it; it's so boring and it's hard work, too. But I suppose I should try to learn to like it because it's so good for you.

At night I dream of ... girls.

What I see when I look in the mirror ... is something very different to what other people see when they look at me. They see whatever they want to see. I see a 17-year-old boy and he's joyous.

My favourite item of clothing ... Right now, it's a little utility-style jacket made by a label called Folk, which all the boys seem to be wearing in London at the moment.

I wish I'd never worn ... a pair of grey pinstripe Vivienne Westwood trousers, which I bought after a messy break-up. That was definitely a bad choice.

It's not fashionable but I like ... the band Tatu [the teenage Russian girl duo who achieved brief fame after kissing each other in school uniforms in the video for their song "All the Things She Said"]. The lesbianism is just an affectation. I just like the music.

I drive ... a 1991 VW Golf Mk 1 convertible.

My flat is ... pristine. It's in east London, I live there alone, and it has a minimalist, modernist, 1960s, Bauhaus-type thing going on inside.

My favourite work of art ... is Francis Bacon's dramatic and unsettling triptych 'Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion'. I saw it when Tate Modern did a Bacon exhibition a few years ago.

My favourite building ... is Battersea Power Station. I like the dramatic nature of it. Nobody would ever build anything like that ever again.

A book that changed me ... was 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson. Within the first six pages the reader is informed that the average human life is 650,000 hours long, and that just didn't seem like enough.

Movie heaven ... is 'Brief Encounter'.

My secret crush ... My girlfriend's going to kill me: the Irish DJ Annie Mac.

My greatest regret ... I don't really have any.

My real-life villain ... is David Cameron.

The last time I cried ... was about two weeks ago, because I was really tired. I was probably watching 'Britain's Got Talent'; it's so manipulative that show – it gets me every time.

My five-year plan ... I don't have a five-year plan. In fact, I don't have any plans whatsoever. I'm not a plan man; it's worked out well for me so far.

What's the point? Because we have to. Is that not enough?

My life in six words ... It's been happening for 31 years.

A life in brief

Mathew Horne was born in Burton Joyce in Nottingham on 6 September 1978. He started his career as a stand-up comedian before becoming a household name as the male lead in James Corden and Ruth Jones's television sitcom Gavin & Stacey. Horne recently played the Culture Club drummer Jon Moss in Worried About the Boy, the BBC docudrama about the life of Boy George, and is now fronting a Raindance Film Festival competition for young writers. For details, visit welcometotheextraordinary.com