Dominic West says going to boarding school was as upsetting as when his parents died.

He told Radio Times magazine; "I got used to the idea of leaving home very young, when I was sent away to boarding school. That had a major effect on me - it was the worst feeling I have ever had, very similar to the grief when my parents died.

"It's the same thing really; you think you've lost your parents. I learned to bury the emotional effects of that and then I went to drama school and had to dig it all up again."

Dominic's father, George died in 2005 after suffering a stroke while his mother, Moya, died at home in 2010 after a long battle with cancer.

The 'Affair' star - who has three children, Dora, nine, Senan, seven, Francis, six, and Rose, two, with wife Catherine Fitzgerald as well as a 17-year-old daughter Martha, from a previous relationship - also revealed how he his very proud of his roots, as he grew up in Sheffield, north England.

Dominic, 46, said: "I live in London so I can be with my family as much as possible, but I'm very proud of coming from Yorkshire. When I meet anyone from Sheffield, they look at me sceptically, as if to say, 'You don't come from Yorkshire.'

"But I do. It used to bug me that 'Old Etonian' was the constant prefix to my name, but everyone has to come out from some pigeonhole and that's not a bad one to have to overcome."