Holm's a devil of a man

Simon Magus is set in 19th-century Silesia. It is an allegory of the diaspora and it is full of fantasy and humour and magic - part folk-tale, part realistic human psychology - very moving and charming. I play the Devil. Although it's only a cameo, the Devil always has the best tunes. I hadn't played Lucifer before - unless you call Richard III the Devil - but some time ago I had been asked to play the Devil in Arthur Miller's play The Creation Of The World And Any Other Business. That didn't come off, so I was really pleased to be asked to play this Devil, who comes in three guises and is charming and uncomplicated, wears mittens and doesn't wash much.

Noah Taylor, who I knew from Shine, plays Simon Magus, an outcast from a village whose population has been decimated by the arrival of the steam train. As crops fail, milk sours and incomes fall, wild-eyed Simon is said to be the cause.

I didn't know the rest of the cast, which includes Embeth Davidtz, Stuart Townsend and Sean McGinley, but I'd worked with Rutger Hauer, who plays the village Squire, on one of those Nazi movies called Inside The Third Reich.

I'd never heard of the writer-director Ben Hopkins, who is a sparky young man and a laid-back director who doesn't believe in suffering for his art, but is totally prepared to put his neck on the line. I might only have done three days' work on the film but I learnt something new every day and I firmly believe that if you ever stop learning you might as well go and drive buses.

Simon Magus
Cert: PG