You once played Basil Fawlty in an amateur student production of Fawlty Towers at Queen's College in Melbourne. How amateur was your Basil Fawlty moustache?

It was terrible. It was real but it was definitely coloured in – I still have holes in my beard. I'd also shaved my head, so if you look at the early promo posters, you can clearly see I'm wearing a wig. Our theatre was closed so we had to perform in a circus tent in the middle of winter, on an oval in the university grounds, which was all very Fawlty Towers.

I've always loved comedy. I didn't really do anything serious until drama school. I always thought there might be a good spin-off with Sauron and Celebrimbor as an odd-couple situation.

You play Sauron in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Tolkien wrote that Sauron "represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible". What do you consider wholly evil?

A complete disregard for the feelings and wellbeing of other people, to put it simply. It's the intention, I think. I have horrible flashbacks to playing Aussie rules when I was about 17. I thought people were being quite evil to me at the time. I felt like I was being bullied because I wasn't being aggressive or manly enough, and people were just trying to make me feel bad and dent my confidence for no reason.

That's the only thing that pops into my head, which I think is probably a good sign!

What was the most Sam Neill thing Sam Neill did when you were making Palm Beach?

The most Sam Neill thing was just being unbelievably kind to everyone. He re-enact a Jurassic Park dinosaur sequence with one of our cast mates, because she wanted to send some photographs to her friends. From memory, he was the dinosaur and she was playing him.

What's the strangest thing you've done for love?

When I proposed to my wife, we were in the woods in Hampshire, near where she grew up. She used to go there when she was little and her parents would leave letters from fairies for her. Now the woods are full of little fairy figurines. It was also really muddy so when I proposed I thought, "Oh shit, this is the bit where you've got to get down on one knee." But I was in jeans, so I thought, "Love of my life and all that, but I'm not going to kneel in the mud." I ended up doing quite a deep lunge, trying to simulate kneeling. If someone was watching it probably would have looked quite strange.

What's been your most cringeworthy encounter with another celebrity?

I once waved at Mo Farah from across the room, thinking he was looking at me. He wasn't, so he didn't respond at all. I was with one of my friends who saw everything.

Who would win in a freediving competition between you and Tom Cruise?

This is quite controversial but I think a lot of actors who do freediving talk about these ridiculous numbers. I think he's done six or seven minutes or something like that. I could get to four, so he would win in a straight-up fight. But I'm pretty sure on Mission: Impossible and on Avatar and stuff they used oxygen beforehand. I'm sort of butchering the explanation, but they would breathe oxygen through a mask before freediving, to saturate their blood. Whereas we didn't do that. We just breathed normal air, which I think means you can't hold your breath for as long.

So you're saying Tom Cruise cheated?

Yeah, exactly. That's the headline. Tom Cruise cheated at freediving.

What's the ideal length of men's shorts?

I have quite long thin legs so this is actually quite a sore spot for me. I used to be – and still am – quite sensitive about my knees and ankles. No matter how much I go to the gym, I've never been able to put any muscle on my knees. I was going to say 90cm but that's really long, isn't it? That's like three-quarter length for me.

I used to say over the knee, so I could cover mine up. But because it's been so hot this summer, I've got into shorts that are quite short.

Like Harry Styles?

Yeah, I guess he wears quite short shorts. But I feel like Harry Styles has much more muscular legs than me. There's your second headline.

What are you secretly really good at?

I can play the drums, although I haven't played properly in a while. I was in a rock band in year six called No Name Yet, and we'd play Green Day and the Doors covers, with Hitchin' a Ride by Vanity Fare as our encore. Then I was in a jazz band called Over the Limit. There's actually a bit in The Silmarillion where Sauron has a sing-off with Finrod. It's not quite in the right time period but they could do some kind of homage and have Sauron in a drum-off, maybe.

What's your most controversial pop culture opinion?

I'm not a huge fan of cheese. I know that's not really a pop culture thing. Is cheese a pop culture reference? But everyone loves cheese for some reason, and I don't really like it. Pretty much cheese across the board. Strong cheese? No chance.

Charcuterie boards are quite a big thing in England. Growing up in Australia, we didn't have this thing where people would have a bunch of cheese. Is it before dinner? Is it after dinner? Whatever it is: cheese. And you can throw cold meat into that. That's gross as well.

How can someone with such a pretty face be so evil?

I actually think it's because my eyes are – this is a very anatomical description – quite deep in my head. So I think if I move my head in any direction, my eyes are literally quite hard to see. So perhaps that is why. It's just an anatomical thing. It's got nothing to do with my existence.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season three premieres on Prime Video on 11 November