Play boys: Matthew McNulty and Max Brown

Last year Matthew played Luis Buñuel in Little Ashes opposite Robert Pattinson, currently the UK's brightest star since appearing in Twilight. The historical drama follows a young Salvador Dali and his relationship with the playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. 'There's something that draws you to Rob. He is really intelligent and he's a charming chap as well. When the Twilight thing exploded I wasn't surprised. Little Ashes will be seen by a lot more people now.' Matthew and Robert are the only British actors in the Spanish cast. 'Previously he was just that guy from Harry Potter [he played Cedric Diggory and was murdered by Ralph Fiennes in the fourth instalment]. The fact that he's playing Dali will wash that off a bit and people will see him as a proper actor.'

I discover that some of the nerves are down to the fact that Matthew is only weeks away from marrying his high-school sweetheart, Katie, with whom he has been for ten years ('with a few breaks') and has two sons, Ellis, three, and Oliver, two. They didn't plan on having children so early. 'But we both knew we were right for each other and so it just happened. It was no big deal. Ellis starts school in September which makes me feel really old.' Matthew is only 26. 'My little boys are my life,' he says. 'The longest I've been abroad in one stint was three weeks and it was horrible. We keep in touch on Skype.'

Matthew and Katie have an extras agency in Manchester, which she runs while he's away. Educated at an army school, Matthew grew up with his three siblings on a base in Germany where his father was stationed (he eventually became a sergeant major). 'He was in the Falklands, Northern Ireland, the first Gulf War. It was sad when he went away. We just fed off what my mum was feeling.' Matthew's mother died when he was a teenager.

On two occasions he has played soldiers: in The Mark of Cain, a fictional drama based on testimonies of soldiers serving in Iraq, and in the 2008 Channel 4 drama The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall, about a student killed by an Israeli sniper in Gaza in 2003. 'I don't really talk about my work to my dad. What I do is alien to my whole family. Twenty-two years in the army must institutionalise you a little bit and I didn't want my portrayal of a young squaddie to be tainted by his view. I had a mate out in Iraq so I got the vibe of what it was like off him.'

In last year's BAFTA award-winning Joy Division biopic Control, directed by Anton Corbijn, Matthew played Nick Jackson, Ian Curtis's friend who goes out with Debbie Curtis (played by Samantha Morton) before Ian steals her away. 'We had this voice coach telling them the whys and wherefores of the Manchester accent, and it was way off mark. I think it was useful for them that I was on board.'

In ITV primetime comedy Honest, with Amanda Redman, he plays her twin sons Vin and Taylor, and last month he was stealing the heart of Olivia Hallinan in Lark Rise to Candleford, only to break it an episode later.

Matthew shuffles out of the booth, asking the way to Euston station, and off he goes with a bundle of scripts under his arm to read on the train back to Manchester. His LA agent clearly has the hardest-working actor in the UK on his books.

With a decade of television and a failed marriage already behind him, Max Brown is currently cavorting about in a codpiece opposite Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the HBO drama The Tudors. He plays the dastardly Edward Seymour, the powerhungry elder brother of Henry VIII's third wife Jane. His break came ten years ago on Children's BBC; first he was heart-throb Danny Hartson in the 25th series of Grange Hill, then he graduated to playing ladies' man Kristian Hargreaves in Hollyoaks, and angelic waiter Mark Russell in Crossroads. He also appeared in episodes of Casualty and Doctors.

He carved himself a niche as a soap pin-up with a catalogue of topless scenes to prove it. 'I don't think I've played typical leading men. I've played guys with emotional problems; I like going to the extremes of people's emotions,' says Max, 28, in Starbucks on Westbourne Grove, looking very urbane in a charcoal Hugo Boss blazer and matching cardigan. 'With Seymour, he's this power-crazed individual, but he knows how to play everybody at court and is just waiting to walk all over them.'

In 2005 Max married actress Pollyanna Rose after dating for five years. They starred together in Paradise Lost, a film about an ill-fated backpacking tour of Brazil, co-starring his friend and star of House, Olivia Wilde. Pollyanna is now based in LA but Max would much rather dwell on the benefits of his new nest in Notting Hill which he shares with current girlfriend Annabelle Horsey. 'I love the fact that Soho is only £10 away in a black cab. It makes a world of difference when you're pissed at three in the morning.'