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A decade ago Dominic West and Clarke Peters were two working actors living in the same north-west London neighbourhood. At the time they were both making a reasonable if unreliable living on stage and screen, yet they were strangers not just to the general public but also to each other. Then out of the blue they found themselves in the American backwater of Baltimore, starring in

, alongside fellow Simon regular Wendell Pierce (Bunk in

, the two actors also share an intimate connection to Sheffield. West grew up on the borders of the city and Peters, who must boast one of the most eclectic CVs in the business, spent a lot of time working in Sheffield. It was the place in which he began writing , his celebration of the jazz and blues composer Louis Jordan that became an unexpected West End stage hit in the 1990s.

Othello

"I think at one point Wendell [Pierce] brought it up," recalls Peters when I meet him and West during rehearsals in east London, "and we were all in the same mindset: this would be a really wonderful thing for us to do as we love each other's company, we know each other working, you can be as risky as you want to be."

"Actually," says West, subtly amending his co-star's memory, "what I think it was is that we had a lot of downtime on

"Tone it down?" continues West with mannered theatrical bitchiness. "Not your first instinct."

A few years later he relocated to Britain, appearing in musical stage shows at such glamorous venues as the Watford Palace. The move from Paris to Watford is typical of a man who one moment is directing Denise Van Outen in a play, the next off to America to front a Spike Lee film. There's nothing precious about his approach. They're both jobs of work, and he's a man, you gather, who likes to work.

we always called him Four Jobs," says West, in reference to Peters's crammed employment schedule.

West turns askance to Peters. "Really?" he asks, genuinely surprised, and even a little outraged. "You never told me that! You would have ducked out?"

. He has this huge range in which he has to be malevolent, he has to be funny. It's also psychologically hard to hold the two parts in your head and not let them bleed."

. So, I say, West had heard good things about Evans before working with him?

Cue another burst of knowing laughter from Peters.

Treme