Last year I spent a day in the company of actor Tom Hardy, film director Nicolas Refn, film crew and several other actors. I’d applied for a role as a film extra and got the job. It was a cold day in Loughborough at Stanford Hall. My roll was a prison guard for the film Bronson, out on release last Friday, 13 Mar 2009 and already winning awards (I’d like to take all the credit ;-)).

I saw the film tonight and after a long wait and am pleased to say my short burst as an actor did not end up on the cutting floor. Sadly I wish I’d held my stomach in as I escort Bronson across the corridor for release from prison. Proud owner of a one pack – I look pregnant! I appear again in a scene a few minutes later. It’s a view from behind and shows my crown. I never realised how much I look like my dad until I saw the back view.

It took all day to film two scenes and delivered about 5 seconds of screen time. As a huge David Bowie fan in the seventies I am please that my film début lasted longer than his in Virgin Soldiers, where he’s pushed across the screen in the briefest of glimpses. The documentaries had to freeze frame his scene so you knew it was him.

After the film I hung back to view the credits only to see my name was misspelt as Peter Barry. Full marks to the production team!