To most people the name Tim Curry is synonymous with The Rocky Horror Show. He created Dr Frank-N-Furter for the stage when he was at the Royal Court Theatre and wowed audiences in the West End before taking the character to Broadway. A big-screen version in 1975 cemented his reputation and since then he has had two Tony award nominations for Best Actor and won the Royal Variety Club Award as Stage Actor of the Year. He takes a break from his LA base to visit Sussex to star in Tom Stoppard’s retelling of Hamlet through the eyes of two of its minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

* Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead is on at Chichester Festival Theatre, Oaklands Park, Chichester until June 11, 7.30pm, Saturday and Thursday matinees 2.15pm, May 31, 7pm, tickets from £14, call 01243 781312.

Which film star/pop star/rock star/ artist/writer do you admire, and why?

David Bowie because he’s literate and visceral. He’s also a master of form and transformation.

Which TV programme couldn’t you live without, and why?

American Idol because it’s such a grim microcosm of showbusiness.

Do you remember the first record you bought – what was it and where did you buy it?

I bought Every Time We Say Goodbye by Ella Fitzgerald when I was about 12 years old from an HMV in Croydon.

Tell us about any guilty pleasures lurking in your CD or film collections – something you know is a bit naff but you can’t help yourself.

I can’t spend Christmas without Phil Spector’s Christmas Album.

Favourite film, and why?

I love Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973) for the extraordinarily sustained sinister suspense.

Favourite book, and why?

A Perfect Spy by John le Carré is a favourite book of mine. I think it’s the best spy novel ever written.

Is there a song or individual piece of music you always come back to, and why?

I saw West Side Story with the original London cast in the late 1950s. It was on at London’s Her Majesty’s Theatre. So when I listen to the original Broadway production recording now, it reminds me why I want to do what I’m doing and why I wanted to do it in the first place.

What are you reading at the moment?

I’m reading the biography Diaghilev: A Life by Sjeng Scheijen.

Tell me about a live music, theatre or cinema experience that sticks in your memory...

John Stride and Judi Dench in a Franco Zefirelli production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet.

Is there a book/record/ film/play/person that made you want to do what you do now?

Along with West Side Story, Paul Schofield’s King Lear had a profound affect on my interest in acting.

If you get a spare 30 minutes, how are you most likely to spend it?

Asleep.

You appeared in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties in your early career, now you’re in Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead – is he a playwright you particularly admire?

Indeed he is. I believe he’s the greatest living playwright even though he does make me wish I was better educated.

Why does Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead have such enduring appeal?

Because it’s such a dazzling example of tragic-comedy and a dissertation on the nature of reality.

You had great success as King Arthur in Spamalot – were you sorry to leave that role?

I must have been, because I did for it a year on Broadway before coming to London with it.