A word to the wise: if you meet Hugh Dancy, don’t whatever you do call him a heart-throb. “That”, he says, with a sneer perceptible from the other side of the Atlantic, “is just journalism. If you’ll excuse it.”

Of course. Moving on to just acting: it is Dancy’s involvement in the forthcoming Jane Austen Book Club which has given rise to the distasteful H word, as it is tipped to be the role that propels him into the big time in America. The film is set in LA and Dancy plays Grigg, the only man in a book club of five women. “He’s just kind of roped in on a misunderstanding,” says Dancy, 32. “He’s very easygoing, a bit nerdy on the surface, but he’s comfortable in his own skin.”

Dancy himself has every reason to be comfortable in his own skin. Currently dating fellow actor Claire Danes, whom he met while filming Evening, he has been in work pretty much constantly since leaving Oxford in 1997 with a degree in English. The story goes that having pitched up almost by accident in the office of hot-shot agent Dallas Smith, he was signed on the spot. TV work flowed in, including Daniel Deronda and David Copperfield, and playing the Earl of Essex in Elizabeth I, for which he was nominated for an Emmy. Not bad for someone who never even went to drama school.

“I’d been acting at school since I was 13… so I kind of felt I knew what it was, standing on a stage. Drama school is very useful for a lot of people, but not necessarily for everyone. One piece of advice I was given early on is that if you’re not working, it’s fine. It’s when you’re not auditioning that there’s a problem.”

The early Dancy career capitalised on his good looks with a succession of costume roles. He talks fondly of filming King Arthur in Dublin with Ioan Gruffudd and Keira Knightley, a shoot on which the Guinness flowed because “our only work-related duty was to turn up in the morning and be able to sit on a horse. There was a sodden weekend when I realised, ohmigod, we’re only halfway through this movie. I don’t know if my system can handle it!”

Although King Arthur was slated by the critics, Dancy’s career has gone from strength to strength. Even fashion photographers are impressed: he was shot in 2005 by Mario Testino for a Burberry campaign with Kate Moss. “It’s so funny,” he says without a hint of mirth. “What people talk of as modelling I thought of as turning up and sitting in front of a car for four hours.”

But it was the Emmy nomination that helped raise his profile in the US. And the apparent Anglomania currently gripping America’s casting agents doesn’t hurt: nearly a third of this season’s new prime-time TV series star British actors, including Damian Lewis, Jack Davenport and Anna Friel. Is Dancy part of the trend? He sighs and says he’s been asked the question since he started out.

“We’ve always had actors working in the States. I think it’s natural for British actors to live here [in the US]: business is here, the audience is here and, let’s face it, the money is here.”

But Dancy insists that he won’t be packing his bags permanently. “It’s very easy for English actors to come to America and settle in, momentarily, but it’s much harder in the long run. It’s hard to find genuine dive bars in New York. They’re all themed or sports bars with a massive wide-screen TV. It can be a little jarring.”

He has even less time for what he calls the one-sidedness of Los Angeles. “I’ve got work out of LA and it’s been great for me, but if you turn up on the back of something successful they get excited and you’re hot property, but that only lasts so long,” he explains. “It’s like dating – you have to play hard to get.”

The company of the English frat pack in LA doesn’t appeal either: why move all the way to California to hang out with a small group of Brits? Besides, he can’t get enough of the pastrami sandwiches at Katz’s deli in New York, and pastrami sandwiches are not something LA goes wild for. Nor, for that matter, is it known for his second favourite thing about New York: the cocktails. He is rather partial to a martini. “How do I take it? Straight up with a twist,” he says. “Perhaps slightly dirty....”

So: clever, successful and slightly dirty. Hugh Dancy would probably be a fun night out. Just don’t tell him he’s handsome.

The Jane Austen Book Club is on general release nationwide

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