Ian McShane's biggest regret in life is not starring in a film with his late friend Sir John Hurt

McShane and Hurt were friends ever since they studied at RADA (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) in London together and he admits he wishes they had shared the big screen together before he lost his battle with pancreatic cancer in January at the age of 77.

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, he said: "Johnny Hurt died before we got to make another film together. Johnny was two terms ahead of me [at RADA] and then he left and I got the lead in a movie he was already in. He suggested it for me. Then we did our first play together and we shared a flat. It's funny thinking of him as gone. We're the last of the breed, us lot.

"You know you move from TV, you go to theatre, you do film - that's what you were brought up to do. Proper acting. That's what you enjoy doing. That's what he did."

McShane also has an ambition to work with acclaimed English director Ken Loach, whose last movie 'I, Daniel Blake' was awarded the Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.

However, he doesn't think he's on Loach's radar for a role in one of his gritty dramas because of his past playing cheeky rogue antiques dealer Lovejoy in the BBC One series of the same name.

McShane - who will next be seen in the TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel 'American Gods' - said: "Soon as you do Sunday night TV, they go 'sold out! He's sold out!' That's how they think of me. There are some films I don't remember being in, that's true. But sold out? Nah I'm having too much fun to think that way."