Alessandro Nivola is American. This is a fact I thought I had come to terms with. Yet it still felt like a complete bolt out of the blue when an English accent didn’t emerge as we sat down to chat. Ever since Michael Winterbottom took a chance on casting him as a Hastings fisherman in 1998’s I Want You, Nivola has cemented himself as stage and screen's most convincing Brit mimic.

It’s why he had no qualms about taking on the role of a North London orthodox Jew in Disobedience, Sebastiân Lelio’s tense tale of forbidden lesbian love. We talked to the 46-year-old actor about the challenges that came along with the job, as well as his upcoming part in the much-anticipated Sopranos prequel, The Many Saints Of Newark.