An army of adoring fans, a string of blockbuster films, a beautiful wife and two lovely children - this A-list actor seems to have it all. So why does he want to escape to the pub?

Fame, work, kids - life can be hell... John Hannah sometimes wishes he could just escape to the pub

John Hannah has a very sore throat  -  picked up from his four-year-old, tonsillitis-suffering daughter  -  and is weary from repeated trips to Scotland to visit his parents, who have also been unwell.

With many actors this would spell trouble: tired, ailing thespians do not, generally, a good interview make  -  no matter what they have to promote.

But Hannah is not your typical thesp. While the 46-year-old has achieved high-profile success in both film and television, he remains charmingly human.

There are no protective publicists in the room, or the usual list of question restrictions. Instead, the only slight change made to the interview schedule is to enable Hannah to pick up some antibiotics.

It's all very un-movie star, despite his appearance in what Universal Pictures hopes will be one of the summer's blockbuster films  -  The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, part three in the hit Mummy franchise, which sees Hannah reprising his role as bumbling opportunist Jonathan Carnahan.

The first film was made nine years ago and seemed, at the time, a rather odd choice for a man who, following his breakthrough role in Four Weddings And A Funeral in 1994, was making a name as either a handsome romantic lead  -  think Sliding Doors opposite Gwyneth Paltrow  -  or a brooding type, such as the eponymous pathologist in the 1995 TV series McCallum.

For all its special effects, The Mummy is rather slapstick, and no character more so than Hannah's. 'I must admit, I was initially reluctant about it,' he says. 'I'd never done anything slapstick like that and I was scared I wouldn't be able to pull it off. But, finally, that fear was what made me do it: as an actor you have to challenge yourself, otherwise what's the point? In the end I really enjoyed it.

Filming The Mummy movies has been quite strenuous as there are lots of stunts, but I'm not complaining. We've had a lot of fun doing them.'

This time, filming took place in Montreal and China, on lavish, multimillion-pound sets: not bad work for a working-class boy from the outskirts of Glasgow, who trained as an electrician before deciding to go to drama school.

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Mummy's boy: John Hannah in a scene from new film The Mummy

The creative leap nearly didn't work out: initially, Hannah had to supplement his scraps of TV and theatre work with jobs on construction sites, and was on the verge of throwing in the towel when he was cast as Matthew, one of Hugh Grant's friends in Four Weddings.

What started out as a small British romantic comedy became a sensation, as did Hannah's funereal recitation of W H Auden's Stop All the Clocks, a poem that was immediately clasped to the nation's collective bosom. Suddenly, Hannah was stop-in-the-street famous.

It sounds like the dream transition, although he now says he found this overnight success difficult to cope with. 'I don't think anyone is really brought up to deal with that kind of shift,' he says.

'I don't know any actor who goes into the game to be famous. You want to be successful, and good, but that's different. For me, it felt like I was on this train that was hurtling along and I didn't know where it was headed, but, at the same time, I was scared of getting off and not being able to get back on.

But everyone struggles with it in different ways. And it can destroy you if you don't get on top of it.'

For Hannah, the solution lay in nine months of therapy. 'It got me over the hump, as it were. When you talk to friends about your problems, however well-meaning they are, it quite often becomes about them.

Even if you're saying, "My dad's ill", they'll say, "Oh, my dad was ill, too", and part of you wants to say, "Shut up, this is about me."' He laughs. 'With therapy, you're paying someone to listen to you, so you don't get that. In the end I just said, "Right,
I'm going to take a break from this now."

He hasn't been back since, though he sometimes contemplates returning. Although his boyish, friendly manner belies it, Hannah confesses to battling bouts of depression. 'There are occasions when I've thought I'd like to do it again.

Sometimes you just get a bit down, you struggle with things.' He pauses. 'There are times when life seems really, really hard. And I know that, compared to most of the population, I've got it good. I've got a good job, a beautiful wife  -  we've been together a long time and we're very happy  -  and two lovely kids.

Suits you, sir: Hannah got his break in Four Weddinigs and a Funeral

And yet I always seem to be running round in a panic. I'm always in a rush. I watch people sauntering along in the park and I think, "How do you do that?" I mean, I've only worked for a few weeks this year, but there just never seems to be any time.'

He confesses that fatherhood, while rewarding, has played its part in this angst. Four years ago, his wife, fellow Scot Joanna Roth  -  an actress whom he met while appearing at the National Theatre in 1991  -  gave birth to twins Astrid and Gabriel after several failed attempts at IVF.

But children, Hannah soon realised, bring their own challenges. 'Fatherhood changes you in the most profound way,' he says. 'All the negative stuff is true. I'm exhausted; I never have a minute to myself. You can never spontaneously go off and do something, like go home and say, "Let's go to the pub". But, for all that, you wouldn't change it.'

The twins are Mini-Me's of their parents, Hannah says  -  Gabriel's blonde hair and blue eyes mirroring his own in childhood, while Astrid's brunette looks are those of her mother. 'They're both very different, personality-wise,' he adds. 'Astrid is a mad, funny little thing; she loves to fool around.

Gabriel is far more thoughtful and sensitive. At the moment we try to split them up a bit because they wind each other up. They can be charming on their own, but put them together and you've got Genghis Khan and his army in your house.'

Any parent will know the feeling only too well  -  but, in Hannah's case, it is coupled with another emotive pull on his time. His parents, John and Susan, have both had prolonged stays in hospital recently and Hannah has been travelling home to Scotland to visit them, usually taking one of the twins with him.

'Dad had a stroke and Mum's been ill, too, so we've been juggling trying to cope with their needs at the same time as looking after the twins. I'm very conscious of trying to look after both ends.'

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Hannah with wife, fellow Scot Joanna Roth

I say he is a textbook member of the sandwich generation  -  wedged between the needs of ageing parents and young children. 'That's exactly how I've been feeling,' he says. ' Especially seeing both Mum and Dad in hospital, and not knowing how it was going to work out.

Watching people you love suffer is horrible, and it takes you closer to the edge of the cliff. And then you've got the twins and you want to safeguard them as much as possible, clear the broken glass out of the way, as it were.'

It doesn't sound very movie star-ish, all this tricky juggling, but then Hannah baulks at the description in any case. 'I never think I'm John Hannah the movie star, never,' he protests. 'I'm just John Hannah, always in a rush, running round like a madman, trying to squash what I can into a day. When I'm not filming, my life is, "Can I squeeze in five minutes at the gym before picking the kids up", just like everyone else.'

It can't have helped that the Hannah family has moved house three times in the past two years, initially following the well-trodden route of leaving London, where they lived in Richmond, for a new life in the country, only to return again 13 months later.

'I hated the countryside,' he says, with a laugh. 'We moved to a lovely big house in the Chilterns in Oxfordshire, and you have all these ideas about your children running along hedgerow-lined country lanes.

But, in reality, there are no children playing in the lanes because it's too dangerous, with cars hurtling down them. We knew, within a few months, that it wasn't right for us  -  you're miles away from anywhere, and there's a lack of anything to do and a lack of spontaneity. We just didn't take to it.'

So anxious were Hannah and his wife to get out that they swapped their rambling five-bedroom home for a rented two-bedroom flat back in Richmond, to facilitate a move. 'The day we moved back I was up north, but I spoke to Joanna on the phone and, even amid all the chaos of the unpacking, I could hear the smile in her voice. I'd never heard her so happy. And she still is; we both are. It's just right for us.

'Funnily enough, we bumped into the jobbing actor Anthony Calf in nearby East Sheen just after we moved back. He told us he and his family were about to move out to Chichester in West Sussex. We said, "Don't do it, mate, it'll be a nightmare," but he was convinced he'd got it sussed.' He pauses. 'He was back within a year.

People sometimes think I'm James Nesbitt

Joanna and I joke that we should set up a company for townie types who move to the country then want to move back again, as we've come across so many of them.'

The couple now live in a comfortable house close to Richmond Park, and have no plans to move  -  though the upheaval of previous months did, at least, enable the family to accompany Hannah on some of his filming commitments. 'Given that we weren't that settled when I was filming The Mummy, we were able to take the kids with us.

They came to Canada for about six weeks and loved it,' he reveals. 'We took them on to the set  -  I've got a photo of them sitting in the directors' chairs with a couple of yetis from the film behind them and all this towering film equipment. They thought they were in a giant play park.' It probably won't be their last time on a Mummy set, as it seems there may be more sequels to come  -  not that Hannah is complaining.

'I'm fairly happy with my career right now. I'd like a bit more choice, of course. There seems to be a recession in brave ideas, especially in this country. We follow the lead rather than take it. There's not a lot that's being made for TV that I'd like to do, but, then, everyone who's any good wants to do the stuff I do want to do. But, fundamentally, I don't do too badly.'

When he meets the public he finds that people still recite Stop The Clocks to him, although, these days, people can't always place him  -  which suits him fine. 'It shocks me sometimes, though, the way people are so in your face. I'll be in a café; and someone will come right up and say, "Where do I know you from?"' he shakes his head.

'Sometimes, if I'm in a bad mood, I'll be a bit short and I'll say, "Just tell me what you watch and I'll tell you if I'm in it." Sometimes they think I'm James Nesbitt, so obviously I tend to only do it when they think I'm him. Might as well exploit the confusion!'

He winks  -  and I breathe a sigh of relief that, for all his professed bouts of melancholy, John Hannah hasn't lost his trademark twinkle.

The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor is in cinemas from Wednesday.