Actor Adam Pearson feels disfigurement onscreen is often presented as a problem. He sees it very differently. He talks about karaoke in Croydon, rivalry with his twin, Oscar ambitions – and why his mum refuses to believe he’s famous

Adam Pearson has a longstanding argument with his mother, Marilyn, about how well-known he is. The tension is most likely to surface when they are at home in Croydon and Marilyn asks the 39-year-old actor to do some menial household chore. For example: “We’ve recently put up a new shed, and tomorrow morning I’ve got to carry all the heavy stuff down to it,” says Pearson, with a weary shake of his head. “There’s literally a bag of cement. I said to her, ‘Why have we got a bag of cement?’ And she said, ‘We might need it one day.’ Fine! What day are we going to wake up and be like, ‘Oh, thank God we kept that bag of cement!’”

So, a do-you-know-who-I-am moment then?