"I get incredibly homesick when I'm away which I am for eight to 10 months of the year. I love England. I only have to be there for two minutes to get steeped in its identity.
"What I really miss when I'm away is English enthusiasts, which, incidentally, is something we're not very good at. We're not very good at enthusing. We're very good at lampooning and deriding. We ought to remember that the English enthusiast is a good thing."
Good point. We should enthuse more about Kinglsey rather than lampoon him. We should not report, as some journalists did, that he found out about his third wife's affair from the Internet. Or deride him for demanding to be called "sir." If indeed he did.
And, what's more, we should indulge an English enthusiast's enthusiasms. We should savor his warm-hearted dottiness. Kingsley tells me that on the set of The Last Legion he had silver dog tags made for every member of the cast and crew. He gets very enthusiastic about them. "Each had the name of their character, their name and their regiment. They all wore them with pride. I'd be wearing mine today, but I left it next to my bed at home."
His latest enthusiasm is a book. He recently bought the rights to a novel, and wants to star in a film version of it. "A couple of weeks ago you might have asked me - and if I'm putting words into your mouth then tell me to shut up - but for this article you might have asked me: 'Your canon's pretty big, is there any role you'd have liked to have played?' And if you'd asked me that, I would never have said William Shakespeare."
But then Christopher Rush sent him a manuscript copy of his new novel about Shakespeare called Will. "It came with a note: 'Please try to find a way of being Shakespeare.' So I start to read it and I think I've got to do it." Why? "It's very comparable to Rushdie. It has his rhythms and his bravura. It's a wonderful book."
But Kingsley's enthusiasm for playing Shakespeare isn't just for the novel. It's for the England he loves. "With great respect to Slovakia [where The Last Legion was filmed], I must film this in England. You know you can't simulate the crunch of autumn leaves. That early morning crunch, you know?" Again, I don't, but do go on. "That bit of mist. It's a visceral thing." His eyes, not for the first time, are moist.
The minders return to the hotel suite, insisting that the interview ends. One last question, then. How should I address him? "Ben. Just Ben." We stand and shake hands. But everybody else says it's Sir Ben? "Ignore them. It's all blah blah, you know? Blah blah."
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