Date - Saturday, September 22, 2001

The actor worships David Bowie, loves Robert Altman's films, Primo Levi's account of life in a concentration camp and John Malkovich's explosive acting, but hates Big Brother and dumbed-down television.

Film

I am crazy about the work of the Polish film-maker Krzysztof Kieslowski. I saw his mini series, Dekalog (1988), and became a huge fan of his movies: Double Life of Veronique (1991); The Ten Commandments (1987); and his Three Colours trilogy (1993/4, above). Maybe it is something to do with space and time in his films, but they always feel unrushed, moving without it being obvious why. We are so used to films that manipulate us and tell us what to feel, often led through them like a lazy voyeur, but his movies are so affecting because they take time to get involved.

I think Robert Altman is a genuine master. I have just worked with him on the murder-mystery thriller Gosford Park (2001) and I don't think there is any other director today who could have pulled together such an extraordinary cast. No matter how good a director is, there is always that little bit of tension when he says, "action", but with Robert it is just so relaxed. Yet at the same time this incisive and sharp film brain is picking up every intricate detail.

You look at his body of work and it is phenomenal. The Player (1992) had a major impact on me; The Long Goodbye (1973) was pretty fine and I stumbled across a small film he made years ago -Streamers (1983) -based on a play by David Rabe, that I also love.

I have been doing a series of commercials for BMW with some pretty high profile directors, one of them being Wong Kar-wai. I am a huge fan of his movie In the Mood for Love (2000). I know "cool" is an over-used word, but I thought it was the coollest film that I had seen. I am an ex-smoker and, I can't explain it, but watching some of those shots, so subtle in their seductiveness, made me want to start smoking again.

Television I haven't had much time in the last year to watch television, but one thing that has made an impact on me recently, because it was so ground-breaking, was The Royle Family. How anyone could have pitched that idea about a family who sit around all day and watch TV is incredible. But the actors pull it off with a finesse that is sublime. I think that the best television series ever made was The Prisoner (1967) with Patrick McGoohan (right). It was stunning. All these years on, I am still trying to dissect what it was about. It was wonderfully inventive and surreal; it would not get filmed now. I have read that a movie of it is going to be made. I have also read that I am up for the Patrick McGoohan part. You know what I know -what I have read.

Books

Someone gave me a copy of If This is a Man by Primo Levi (Abacus, Pounds 8.99, below), who survived a Second World War concentration camp. It is an incredible piece of writing about his time in the camp, examining the human condition, its need for survival -sometimes with some self-loathing -and how human beings behave under such severe stress.

His later books are about survival and how people who come through the concentration camps do so with enormous guilt. He committed suicide only a few years ago, but for me If This is a Man was a life-changing book. I have also read a lot by the Czech writer Milan Kundera. I came to him through the movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), which was based on his book (Faber & Faber, Pounds 6.99). He writes from a male perspective and sometimes he is accused of being a misogynist, though I don't go with that.

Theatre

My favourite week in the theatre was actually a good ten years ago when, within three days, I saw two productions. John Malkovich brought Burn This to the Hampstead Theatre Club (London, NW3), and he was on top form. It was pretty explosive.

Two days later I went to see the French-Canadian actor Lothaire Bluteau in Being at Home with Claude, about a guy who ends up killing his gay lover.

The second half of the play is virtually a monologue and he did it through tears . . .I was so affected by it that I wrote him a fan letter afterwards.

Seven years ago I did A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at the King's Head Theatre (London, N1). It was written by Peter Nichols, but it hadn't been performed in the West End since 1967. When I first read it I said to my agent: "Stop everything!" It is the most moving, provocative, hilarious and rich piece of writing.

I saw Peter's Passion Play at the Donmar Warehouse (London WC2) and that was incredible, too. He is a very exciting playwright. I don't know why it is that people go in and out of fashion, but Peter is having his time again. And rightly so.

Music

I was crazy about David Bowie (right) in my teens and he is the biggest musical influence in my life. I don't know why, but there has never been another figure that has had such an effect on me. I used to dye my hair different colours like he did. I didn't have most of his work, I had everything. I even met him briefly at a concert in LA. My American agent, who also looks after Bowie's acting career, asked me if I wanted tickets to see him in concert. I felt like a kid when I met him. For me, Bowie is The Man.

Sport

Football. I have been a Liverpool supporter since I was young. When there were matches on television, I would put my Liverpool kit on and watch them faithfully. I am still a big fan and am very lucky because I can always get a ticket for a game.

City

I love Glasgow. I have filmed there a few times and find that the people are such characters. They have an attitude that I love and if I could shoot everything I do in Glasgow, I would be a happy man.

Pet hate I can remember when documentaries made by people such as John Pilger were genuinely informative, but now they have to have some stupid selling point.

I find the dumbing-down of television depressing. I picked up a newspaper recently and it included four or five pages about Big Brother. I watched ten minutes of the show and thought: "What the hell is going on when TV can be such an exciting medium and yet is full of junk?"

Clive Owen was interviewed by Pauline McLeod. He stars in Greenfingers, now on general release, and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, which opens at The New Ambassadors Theatre, London WC2, on Oct 1 (020-7369 1761) PROFILE

Clive Owen was born in Coventry in 1965. After school, he spent two years on benefits before winning a place at RADA. His big break came with the role of the yuppie rogue Stephen Crane in Chancer in 1990, before Mike Hodges's surprise hit Croupier (above) turned him into a Hollywood star. He lives in Muswell Hill, North London, with his wife, the actress Sarah Jane Fenton, and their two daughters, Hannah and Eve.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS * TELEVISION

CHANCER (1990) -- Yuppie drama

THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE (1994) An adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel with Catherine Zeta-Jones SHARMAN (1996)

Playing the down-at-heel private eye SECOND SIGHT (1999) - Brutal crimes investigated by Owen's DCI Tanner

FILM

VROOM (1988)

Beeban Kidron cast Owen in his first lead, opposite David Thewlis CLOSE MY EYES (1991)

Stephen Poliakoff's murky incest drama also starring Saskia Reeves CENTURY (1993)

A doctor in a medical institute unearths horrifying secrets CROUPIER (1998)

The stylish British crime thriller became a hit in America GREENFINGERS (2000)

A comedy about a prison inmate who enters a gardening competition GOSFORD PARK (2001)

The Robert Altman-directed drama, set at a house party in rural England in 1933

* THEATRE

DESIGN FOR LIVING (1994)