I was taken into care when I was 10. I’m the third of four boys and we were slightly feral, left to our own devices, getting into loads of trouble, burgling and vandalising stuff in Stafford. The court put me and my next oldest brother, Stephen, into care. My parents were a bit crap, there wasn’t that much of a bond going on. Eventually, I pretty much lost touch with my family. When Stephen was found dead, in 1997, it was awful, but I hadn’t seen him for a decade. I was constantly getting caned at school, sometimes three times a day. But I couldn’t help my gob. When I was 11, a drama teacher, Sheila Steele, put me up against the wall and said: “You’re in the school play.” I loved it and I was in every school play from then on. I learned a lot of lessons about discipline and hard work. I’m a total grafter. When I’m on a job I’m 100% committed to it. Men Behaving Badly forced me to up my game. Martin Clunes and Caroline Quentin were such consummate comedians and genuinely really funny people that I first thought, “Oh my God.” We really gelled as a foursome [with Leslie Ash]. But being the new big thing was like being shot out of a catapult. It was great for getting into restaurants, but I couldn’t go on the tube for 10 years. I’ve had a little breakthrough in recent years. I’m getting more drama roles. Jed Mercurio took a chance on me in Line of Duty in 2012 and from there I got other parts. It’s been great, but I never watch TV and think, “Ooh, I wish I’d been in that.” Except for Peaky Blinders. They’re running out of Brummies, so they need to get me in it soon. I hated the press making me out to be a womanising love rat. Maybe those relationships would have been different had they not been all over the papers, but no matter what happened, the press shouldn’t have been hacking my phone or having private detectives follow me. I turned into a mistrusting, quieter, reticent person. You start looking at people around you, thinking, where is this information coming from? And who knows what effect it all had on producers who might have hired me. You take the papers to court and you get money, but you don’t get your life back. My partner Emma [Killick] keeps my feet on the ground. I’ve always got big ideas: “We’re going to take the roof off and build a viewing platform!” And she’s like, “Neil, we’re not doing that.” She’s a lot of fun and very organised and she accepts all my madness and quirks and hangovers from childhood that may manifest themselves, like not opening letters because it might be bad news. My first pub business went bust. Things went wrong that I can’t talk about. I had about five years of austerity while I paid back hundreds of thousands to creditors, but I managed to keep my beer company alive and now I have two pubs and a fantastic business partner. Even when the first business failed, I wasn’t that downhearted. I thought, get back on the horse. Anyone can be positive about things. I’m a glass-half-full person. The Good Karma Hospital is on ITV Player