The Interview: Ben Whishaw, a very English megastar, on coming out, being a twin and life inside the 007 circus

For now, it’s back to the day job. Whishaw, 38, is rehearsing a play called Norma Jeane Baker of Troy, in which he plays a man who likes to dress up as Marilyn Monroe. “We just got the costumes,” he says. “I wear a dress that’s a replica of the one she wore in The Seven Year Itch — the white one where the wind comes up. They’ve also given me the bum, hips and breasts. I don’t think they’re as big as Marilyn’s, but they’re proportionate to my body. It’s a strange thing. I’m not playing Marilyn, I’m playing a man who’s infatuated with her. The play is set in the year she died and he’s in mourning for her. Apparently there was a spate of copycat suicides that year.”

To research the role, Whishaw has been reading a book called Fragments. “It’s bits of Marilyn’s diary, notes on hotel paper, poetry,”

he says. “She writes beautifully. Arthur Miller was here with her when they were doing the film The Prince and the Showgirl, and she opened his diary and read about how disappointed he was with her, how embarrassed he was being around his intellectual friends with her. Apparently this was devastating to Marilyn. All these men say how difficult she was. It makes you want to strangle them. But she really was amazing. She had a lot going on, a lot of sadness on her plate, poor darling. To be a star in that star system and those men.”

If she had been born 50 years later, does he think she would have been part of the #MeToo movement? “I’m sure she would have. I’ve been listening to interviews with her. She doesn’t seem afraid of anything.”

Fearless and vulnerable. It’s a contradiction that could possibly describe both of them. “Yes,” he smiles.

I immediately want to sort out an audition for my cat Roger Moore.

“Does Roger travel?” he asks. “Could he go to Pinewood? And can he cock an eyebrow?”

Yes, he can. That’s why he’s called Roger Moore.

“I’ll get onto Barbara Broccoli about it,” he says.

Whishaw has created an ever-widening niche for himself — he has made room in film, theatre and television for malleable, sensitive male characters that are sometimes described as androgynous, but what they really are is sexually ambiguous.

“Do you think I’m androgynous? I think I’m quite male-looking. Androgyny is different to non-binary, but I hate all these labels. I get mixed up.”

It’s true, there are many labels; nonetheless Whishaw is a 21st-century man. When you think of those macho actors of the last century, men like Rock Hudson, who revealed he was gay only when he was dying of Aids, it seems so different now.

Whishaw entered a civil partnership with the Australian composer Mark Bradshaw in 2012, but for a long time he did not discuss his private life. He would say things like, “An actor shouldn’t reveal their sexuality because it pigeonholes them.” Once he had come to terms with it himself, however, hiding it became difficult in a different way. “People assume there’s some juicy secret,” he says. “But I don’t agree any more with that statement [about being pigeonholed]. I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all, and since revealing my sexuality I haven’t had any negative effects.”

Perhaps that’s because he is such a skilful actor, perhaps the pigeonholes aren’t as rigid as they used to be, or perhaps the revelation has actually helped him. He shrugs. He doesn’t mind talking about it now, it’s just he can’t be conclusive.

At one point, Whishaw was lined up to play Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, although he was never given a contract or confirmed officially. Various versions of the biopic had been on the cards for about 10 years. Sacha Baron Cohen was in the frame first of all, then Whishaw, and ultimately Rami Malek. The film has been accused of not being “gay enough”, but, for all the criticism, Malek’s career-defining role won him an Oscar.

We talk about how hard it was for Mercury to admit that he was gay and how he would refer to himself as bisexual. But then perhaps he was. He certainly had sexual relationships with women. “I think it’s very unfair when people say they’re bisexual and they’re accused of being gay really,” Whishaw says. “If we’re honest about these things, perhaps most people are on a spectrum.”

Whatever the risks he took in revealing his sexuality to the public, Whishaw found it much harder coming out to his family. “I’ve gone through a few difficult things,” he says. “There was a moment in my early twenties when I did not feel very good about myself. It was to do with my sexuality and not knowing how to be myself and hating myself. I did know [my sexuality], I just couldn’t tell anyone.”

When he eventually told his parents, they weren’t surprised, but he still struggled. He sought therapy. “It really did help,” he says.

He carries himself with such a sense of otherness that I am surprised to learn he is a twin. “We were born on the same day and we came out of the same place at the same time, but we are totally unalike,” he says. “Perhaps you can see we are related, but we don’t look alike. He’s blond. He came out first and was very pink and chubby. And I was this squashed, dark thing that popped out a few moments after. We were so different, but we were always dressed the same and taken everywhere together, even to things I was not interested in, like football. So I’ve always defined myself by him, but in opposition to him. I like everything different to him. There’s not a single thing we have in common, except we both liked the scary rides if we were taken to a park.”

Don’t twins normally have a kind of supernatural understanding? “No. No understanding, no telepathy. When I told him [about being gay], he wasn’t surprised, of course, but still.”

He notices a black crystal around my neck and I explain that it was given to me by my hypnotherapist.

“I’d like to try hypnotherapy,” he says. For what? “Smoking,” he says. “It’s so frowned upon. You feel ostracised from the world if you smoke. And there’s the hair twiddling thing.” He starts twiddling his hair. “I’ve probably been doing this for the whole interview.” He hasn’t, but apparently it’s been a lifelong habit. “I’ve done it since I was a baby. I don’t know why I do it.”

I recall the title of a Peter Cook anthology: Tragically, I Was an Only Twin. That’s what Whishaw seems like. I can’t imagine him with a brother. “My dad says if my brother and I were one person we would be an amazing, perfect human,” he replies.

It’s often reported that his father works in IT, but that’s not true. “He lives in the countryside and raises chickens behind a farm. He used to be a footballer and he now works in sports with young people. He’s not an IT person at all,” Whishaw laughs. His mother works in cosmetics. They split up when he was a young boy, but he has good relationships with both of them. He talks about them with love.

The last time we met, Whishaw told me he was afraid of meeting people. “I haven’t got over that,” he says. “I love people, but I’m just shy of meeting new people, especially when they’re famous.”

In particular, he was bashful around Meryl Streep, whom he starred alongside in Mary Poppins. “I’m so completely left speechless when I’m in the same room as her. Do you never feel that speechlessness come on you?” he asks sweetly. “Even though she seemed to be the nicest person, I was very timid and shy around her.”

It’s odd how someone so shy can look so confident — smouldering even — on screen.

He walks off in the furry hat that makes him look part man, part mole. It’s certainly a statement. But perhaps the most curious thing about Whishaw is we’ll never entirely know what that statement is.

Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is showing at the Shed’s Bloomberg Building, New York, April 6-May 19; theshed org

Whishaw at rehearsals for Norma Jeane Baker of Troy at Jerwood Studios in London

Hats off: Whishaw gave Paddington his dulcet tones in the recent films

He's a sensitive young man.

Whishaw as Q in Skyfall (2012)

With his twin brother, James

BY TOMO BREJC FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. GROOMING: JODY TAYLOR

He's what they used to call "a sad young man"

I love him he's very talented and a very good man.

I adore him both in human roles and as Paddington.

The most boring Richard II ever recorded.

He wasn’t out when he filmed CRIMINAL JUSTICE (far better than the THE NIGHT OF remake) and when kissing the gorgeous Ruth Negga I had never seen someone more uncomfortable.

Loved him in Perfume, a very difficult role.