Stanley Tucci: ‘We could all potentially kill somebody. I do believe that’

The actor Stanley Tucci, 61, was born in Westchester, New York, to parents of Italian descent. His debut film role was in John Huston’s Prizzi’s Honor (1985). He later starred in The Devil Wears Prada, The Lovely Bones, Spotlight and The Hunger Games and has directed five films, including cult comedy Big Night. Tucci has also written two cookbooks and food memoir Taste and hosted the Emmy-winning culinary travel series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. He now stars in new BBC One drama Inside Man, written by Steven Moffat.

Were you a fan of Steven Moffat’s writing before signing up for Inside Man?
Very much. I adored Sherlock. Steven has a very dark sense of humour, as do I, so I was excited to read the Inside Man scripts. I also love [co-star] David Tennant and had worked with the director, Paul McGuigan, 15 years ago on a film called Lucky Number Slevin. Just to seal the deal, it was filmed 40 minutes from my house. It was a dream job.

Your character, Jefferson Grieff, is an evil genius on death row. How did you go about creating the character?
One of the overriding themes of the piece is that we are all murderers. We could all potentially kill somebody. And I do believe that. If everyone’s the same, you can’t play him as someone who’s different, right? You can’t play him as a moustache-twirling villain with strange eccentricities or a funny voice. That, to me, is what makes it interesting. The more normal he is, the creepier it is.

Grieff says that all it takes to commit murder is a bad day and the right victim. Do you agree?
I think so. You can murder in self-defence. If somebody’s trying to hurt your kid, you’d kill them without a thought. I’ll give you an example. Thirty years ago, I was in Paris with my late wife – which sounds terrible, I didn’t kill her, she died of cancer – and in the middle of the night, this guy appeared on our first-floor hotel room windowsill. My wife screamed, I jumped out of bed naked and yelled: “Fuck you!”, I don’t know why, and tried to push him off by closing the window. I looked down, wanting to see him dead, but there was nobody there. He got away. The reason I tell you this ridiculous story is that my reptilian brain took over and said: “Kill him before he kills you!” So there you are.

Do death row prisoners hold a grim fascination for you, like they do for some?
No, I’m not a true crime guy. I hate that stuff, to be honest. I once dated somebody who loved watching all those documentaries about serial killers. I couldn’t stand it. I played a serial killer in The Lovely Bones and doing the research alone was fucking awful. I could only do an hour per day. What I learned from the FBI guys and images I looked at, you really don’t want to know that stuff.

What does your wife [literary agent Felicity Blunt] make of you playing a convicted wife-killer?
She knows that’s where I’m headed, so this was just a warm-up! No, she was thrilled because we watched Sherlock together. We’ve become friendly with Steven and his wife, Sue [Vertue, a TV producer]. They live near us and are lovely, lovely people.

You’ve worked closely with British actors over the years, including Emma Thompson and Colin Firth. Is there something special that they bring?
They’re very studious, more so than some American actors, and they just get on with it. They’re also very respectful of the script. I tend to stray more from it. You often have to play around with it to sound naturalistic.

Your wife is British and you’re based in London. Would you call yourself an anglophile?
I didn’t think I was but now I am. I’m completely in love with it here and can’t imagine living any other place. Even the weather doesn’t bother me that much. Britain isn’t without its faults, we know that. Many of its main issues have been self-inflicted of late, like Brexit. There’s also the very limited upper-crust pool from which British leaders are chosen. But on the whole it’s a pretty high-functioning country.

Has distance changed your view of America?
Yes. I never truly felt comfortable living in America. I know that sounds odd because I am American but we lived in Italy for a year when I was a kid and in many ways, I felt more comfortable in Europe. America’s very uptight and it’s getting uptighter. Uptighterer (laughs). The NHS had its issues but it’s way better than the American system, which isn’t really a system at all.

Next up, you play record producer Clive Davis in Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Are you a Whitney fan?
Is there anyone in the world who isn’t? If so, I don’t want to meet them.

Were you surprised by the rave reception for your memoir Taste?
Shocked and thrilled. I’d never done anything like that before but I had amazing editors and luckily my wife is a literary agent, so if I got stuck I’d ask her. She’d say: “What about that story you told me?” I’d go: “You think that’s interesting?” She’d go: “Absolutely! Just write that.” You always think: “Oh God, it’s going to be so boring, who cares?” But I guess people did care, which is nice.

Which writers influenced your style?
People who write very simply, take their time and infuse some humour. Joseph Mitchell, who wrote character studies for the New Yorker. SJ Perelman is great and funny. A really good food writer and observationist right now is Jay Rayner.

Do you have more book plans? Ever consider fiction?
Maybe. Not now. I have a lot on my plate, as it were, but I’ve thought about it. I might write something about acting and the creative process. Just little observations or musings. There’s a wonderful booked called Notes on the Cinematographer by Robert Bresson, which was very influential on me. Stanislavski books were like my bibles at acting school. I still go back to them. You don’t need a lot. Simple stories can be absolutely invaluable.

You love food and wine. Why aren’t you the size of a house?
I have a very fast metabolism and exercise like a fiend. It’s the only way. Like for breakfast today, after I’d worked out, I had pasta with beans and chard, which I made the other day, with scrambled egg in it. So delicious.

Since you went viral for making cocktails, do people send you booze all the time?
If you were to come to my house and see how much alcohol is in there, you’d be flabbergasted. I don’t have any place to put it any more. I never thought I’d say this but I have too much booze. It’s similar with food. You go to a restaurant and people send you half the menu to try. Especially in Italy, you cannot say no. They’re so generous because they’re excited that you’re there. When we were filming Searching for Italy, we made a rule that if we ate out for lunch, it had to be one dish and salad. Otherwise they’ll just keep bringing food and you’ll never get back to work.

You were diagnosed with oral cancer in 2018 but had treatment and recovered. Is your sense of taste completely back now?
It’s actually even better than it was. My senses of taste and smell are more acute. We went skiing last winter in Courchevel and there was a restaurant about 60 yards away. I said to my wife: “Somebody’s cooking with paprika.” I could smell it. It’s weird but kind of cool. I don’t have all my saliva back but that’s still improving.

What’s it like being a sex symbol at 60?
My wife thinks it’s funny and I’m incredibly flattered. I don’t get it but I’m glad. Who wouldn’t be glad? Hey, it took a long time.

• Inside Man starts on Monday 26 September at 9pm on BBC One.

• Taste: My Life in Food by Stanley Tucci is out now in paperback (Penguin, £9.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply