The Brutalist star is up for his first ever Academy award next week. He talks about awards fuss, living with his ex, and making his new film, Inside, in an actual prison

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After his acclaimed performances in films such as LA Confidential, The Proposition, Memento, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Animal Kingdom and The Hurt Locker, you may be surprised that Guy Pearce has just been nominated for his first ever Oscar: for his turn as the sociopathic industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren in The Brutalist. Or maybe you haven’t noticed Pearce’s Oscars campaign because he keeps rubbishing his own career: he was “shit” in Memento (“I’m bad in a good movie. Fuck!”), worse in Neighbours (“I played the same thing and it fucking drove me nuts”) and has cheerfully owned up to acting in “a bunch of shit during my divorce because I needed the money”.

As awards campaigns go – well, it’s a lot better than Karla Sofía Gascón’s. Not that Pearce has paid attention. “One of the [Emilia Pérez] actors said something on social media, right?” he says, in the understatement of the century.