Unfortunately, he saw little of the city. "With filming, your memories are usually of arriving at a hotel and leaving it in the morning bleary-eyed to go on a film set."
It was a holiday in Los Angeles that changed his life. An independent film he made with Parker Posey, The Misadventures of Margaret, shown at the Sundance Film Festival, got the TV moguls interested.
"I really did just plan a holiday to see the sights but I have been there ever since. I had a couple of phone calls and next thing I knew I was in meetings at NBC. I lucked into the pilot of a television series which was never made, but it gave me a calling card in Los Angeles."
He was signed up for a TV mini-series Noah's Ark, made in Australia with Mary Steenburgen, before returning to LA. "I thought the holiday had gone bloody well but | needed to get back to my house in London where I had left the tea on the sideboard and the post was piling up."
Instead, he was asked to another meeting, this for "a show with a crazy name, Buffy the Vampire Slayer". The series was then in its third season. Together with Angel, it took up six years of his life.
"It was a tremendous experience as television is really the engine room of Los Angeles. On set every day, you had the blessing of its incredible creator Joss Whedon with wonderful stories every week. It was fantasy but heart-breaking reality as well."
It was also tough. With theatre and film work, there is usually an end date in sight, he says. But, with long-running television series like Buffy and Angel, it is different.
"You made 22 episodes a year which was a long 10 months and in our show, a lot of the action took place at night so you would start the week being on set at 6am and doing a 14 to 16 hour day and end it by going out on the streets at 6pm and working until the sun came up the next day." he says.
"It leaves you in a perpetual state of jet-lag, as it was also a physically demanding show with lots of fights, chase scenes and special effects.
