Marked out as one of the acting world’s most exciting young talents, Aneurin Barnard seems to be on every screen going at the moment, both big and small. He slows down long enough to talk to Kirstie McCrum about his grand plans

There’s no shortage of actors queuing up to play the world’s most famous secret agent on film. But when it comes time for Daniel Craig to hang up his James Bond tuxedo, it’s easy to see how dark-eyed, brooding Aneurin Barnard could step up as the first Welsh 007.

In fact, it’s a role that the young thesp from Ogmore Vale has long set his sights on, and with the determination and drive he’s got, it would be easy to see that he’s got a pretty good chance.

Now 26, the actor, who is currently appearing as Richard III in BBC One’s historical epic The White Queen, has had more than his share of plaudits since graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff back in 2008.

But the thought of the guns, the girls, the Aston Martin and following the likes of Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan and current incumbent Craig is high on the softly-spoken Valleys’ boy’s list.

“The one role that I’ve always said I would love to play is Bond, because it’s something that is very close to me, and it was close to my grandfathers and my father.

“It’s something that I’d really love to do.

“When I was a kid, I used to pretend to be Bond; I used to make up scenarios and irritate my sister and annoy my mother and father pretending to be someone else, so I kind of was already acting when I was a child. I just didn’t really know it.

“I’m not saying that I’ll ever have the chance to, but just to be in a Bond film would be great, even as a Bond villain. The role does excite me, it always has and always will.”

With Craig currently working on the follow-up to the franchise’s 23rd outing Skyfall, there’s still time for Aneurin to fit in a few more projects before the Secret Service comes calling, and as such he’s grabbing every opportunity that comes his way.

With several exciting new projects on the horizon, the next few months promise to firmly establish him as one to watch.

His current schedule sees the Olivier Award-winning actor in Dublin, filming Moonfleet for Sky1 with Ray Winstone, a two-part adaptation of John Meade Falkner’s children’s story.

Aneurin plays a young John Trenchard who’s desperate to join a local band of smugglers, and so begins a tail of swashbuckling and derring-do that mirrors the pages of a boy’s own adventure.

Bond’s adventures aside, the story seems to almost be the perfect distillation of what first attracted him to his future profession.

“I used to fantasise about being an actor who got to play different roles, thinking that I was going to be a pirate one day and a soldier one day, or maybe a knight,” he says.

“I always used to pretend to be different characters – cowboys, that sort of thing. I used to think that the Indians lived over the mountains that I could see out of my bedroom. As I grew up, I started to understand that acting was actually a craft, and there was no question about it, that was exactly what I was going to do.

“So to be asked to play the role of a smuggler is great fun. I was very excited to be able to put those old childhood dreams to bed. I hadn’t read Moonfleet when I was young, but it’s a great story and there are lots of lovely period buildings for me and Ray to film in.

“Doing what we do, you get to see a lot of great places and all the costumes. It’s a nice little world to live within.”

Setting the scene in a nautical world suits Aneurin down to the ground; as well as loving the adventurous side of things, he’s familiar with life on the water.

“I do my own stunts, that’s something I’m very passionate about. I spent a lot of time on boats as a kid, so it’s just nice to be able to put that into use in the job that I do.

“I wouldn’t say I’m an old hand, but I’ve had some experience.”

Experience which has taken him around the world and back again in a plethora of roles starting as a young Jonathan in 2003 children’s biblical yarn, Jacob’s Ladder.

From TV dramas to action movies to horror films, there are few genres that remain untouched when it comes to his acting CV.

High profile projects to date include starring alongside Oscar-nominated Minnie Driver in Wales-made musical movie Hunky Dory; in 2011 he hit the big screen in Ironclad, a big budget adventure set in 1215 starring Hollywood heavyweight Paul Giamatti and Sir Derek Jacobi.

And this week sees the release of a project he’s particularly proud of, Citadel.

The psychological thriller, which is released in cinemas on Friday, is an independent feature film written and directed by Irish visionary Ciaran Foy.

Nominated for a Bafta Scotland Award for Best Film, it also won the Audience Award at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival in Texas.

Aneurin plays Tommy, an agoraphobic father who teams up with a renegade priest to save his daughter from the clutches of a gang of twisted feral children.

He says that the heavy duty source material was perfect fodder for an actor to get his teeth into.

“The first half of the movie has the feel of a documentary and then the plot does a JJ Abrams [creator of TV series Lost] and completely changes into this kind of psychological sci-fi thriller where the shadows almost come alive,” is how he describes it. It’s very much a genre thriller movie with elements of horror.

“It’s a very stylised film; Ciaran is a wonderful director and we worked really hard to hit the more personal elements of the story, so things come from the imagination rather than just jumping out at you. In essence it’s two movies in one and I’m trying to make them merge.

“I really enjoy all that stuff because it’s all about the imagination – half the stuff I’m acting with that my character sees isn’t there until the film’s been done and edited, so you have bated breath waiting to see if your reaction was right.

“That’s part of the fun and joy and exploration of it all for me though.

“Ciaran and I worked really closely with a great director of photography and camera operator called Tim Fleming.

“We were all in the same loop and able to create this make-believe world into something more real, because we were all starting on the same foot and understood each other.”

Working so closely with a like-minded team paid off for Aneurin’s performance, as the film netted him the Best Actor gong at the 2012 Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival in Korea. He says that the secret to his acting success is in inhabiting his character, however similar or different their personalities may be.

“There were elements of the role of Tommy in Citadel where I understood his psyche and his psychological placement. I knew when I was reading it that it was going to be very exciting to attack that and really get into it.

“It was an actor’s piece to get involved with, to find the back story and really be able to sell his condition to the audience.

“I really had to do my homework and the more work there is to be done for a role, the happier I am. So that was the great attraction to being involved in the movie.”

Cerebral he may well be, but his good looks and chiselled cheekbones have surely helped him land parts – he’s even number one in the current Wales’ Sexiest Man list, as compiled by the Western Mail every year.

But giving himself to the work is what Aneurin treasures most.

“I just concentrate on the work and forget that other stuff. If I keep working hard then maybe one day I’ll wake up and realise what’s just happened around me, that my career is what I wanted it to be.

“I don’t want to get carried away with myself, I just want to keep my feet firmly on the ground and keep knuckling down and making sure I’m doing good work, wherever that takes me.

“Of course you want to be successful, but I don’t want to have fame. Celebrity does not interest me. It’s all about my craft, which I consider to be acting.

“Winning Wales’ Sexiest Man? I’m not sure I completely agree with it, but I’m not going to complain about it either!

“Put it this way, it’s better than being called the ugliest man in Wales, so if it’s going to be a positive, I’ll take it.

“It’s lovely and I really respect it.

“Like I say, it’s not on the top of my list of priorities to make sure I achieve it. It’s just a nice accident, I suppose.”

That said, he not going to be drawn on where being Wales’ Sexiest Man ranks alongside his 2010 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical in Spring Awakening in terms of recognition – “I’m not sure,” he says, diplomatically.

Nonetheless his looks are an essential part of the Aneurin package.

The camera fell in love with him in films like Trap For Cinderella opposite Welsh Iron Lady actress Alexandra Roach, Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes with Hollywood A-lister Jessica Biel and fantasy adventure Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box, with Welsh actors Michael Sheen and Ioan Gruffudd, currently scheduled for a 2014 release.

But of all of his recent projects, his forays into television are the ones that have helped to impress those cheekbones onto the public consciousness.

In March last year he hit small screens as photographer David Bailey in BBC Four’s We’ll Take Manhattan, retelling the story of the celebrated snapper and his romance with model Jean ‘Shrimp’ Shrimpton, played by Doctor Who star Karen Gillan.

He’s since followed that up as maligned monarch Richard III in The White Queen, the Sunday night romp based on Philippa Gregory’s best-selling novel series The Cousins’ War.

It’s a role he says is very different from Bailey, despite it again being another convincing rendering of a real person.

“Bailey was tougher to play because he was still alive and for me it was all about impressing him,” he explains of the challenges.

“If he didn’t like what I did, I would have failed in my job.

“Luckily enough he was very happy with it, so I got away with it.

“With people like Richard III, there are so many takes on him but I wanted to get as close to the truth as possible because I think he’s owed that.

“The Richard III that we all know from Shakespeare is a bastardised version of the true man himself and he’s been portrayed for so long in such a fictional way.

“So I wanted to try to see if I could unearth maybe a real sense of him which hasn’t been seen before.

“I wanted to make him into, not a hunchbacked, evil man, which he wasn’t, but a very loyal, respectful man who was left with a terrible state to look after.

“He had to try to clean that up in a position of no glory.

“I think every man at that point in time in power had evil sides to them, so he wasn’t a saint, but he definitely did things to try to make things better for his people and the country.”

An impassioned defence of a character he’s learned to inhabit is all one would expect from an actor as given to the craft of acting as Aneurin, but then he says he’s had some great Welsh idols to learn from – although not to emulate.

“Michael Sheen’s a fantastic actor and his career’s wonderful.

“I’m always excited to see what he’s going to do next, but I’m not trying to be anyone else but myself.

“I’m just trying to get ahead and carve my own career. For me it’s about trying to find my own path and trying to see whatever takes my fancy as it comes along.

“You miss some of the jobs that you want, but you get them now and again and it’s all about management and making sure you’re making the right choices.

“What could be the right choice for me could be completely different for some other actor.”

He also admits to something of a hero worship for another one of Wales’ most famous sons.

“Richard Burton is my number one idol. One, because we come from very similar backgrounds and two, because of his fantastic talent.

“I grew up watching him and one of the first pieces of acting I ever heard was War of the Worlds played on the LP that my father used to play over and over.

“I fell in love with his storytelling and his narration and that really influenced me.

“Growing up, I loved watching his movies and seeing his plays online.

“One of my biggest regrets in this business was that I was never old enough to have the possibility of working with him, but hopefully if I can live in the shadow of Mr Burton then I can pretend he’s watching.

“He proved everyone wrong when he showed them what a Valleys’ boy from a coal-mining background could do; he showed them through getting out there and being among the best.

“He showed everyone in different worlds, not just in the acting business but in other areas as well, that there is a potential in everyone’s life where if you seek what you want to find then the door will open for you and you’ll be delivered the success that you work for.”

Currently living in London means that Aneurin isn’t as close to his family in Wales as he would like, but he says he’s lucky to have the freedom to come back as often as he wants to, which is pretty often.

“You can take the boy out of Wales, but you can’t take Wales out of the boy, as they say.

“I’m a Valleys’ boy through and through and always will be.

“I’ll never ignore that and I’ll always treasure it because it’s one of the gifts that I have in life.

“I miss Wales very dearly, but the quest that I’m on is exciting and I know where home is, I know that I can get back there when I need to and when I can, and I make sure I do.

“I miss my family terribly when I’m away, but I know that they’re there with their full support.

“They egg me on. They’re wonderful and I idolise all of them because they really push me forward and help me do what I do. I miss them, but a man has to do what a man has to do.”

That devotion to the acting cause is something that comes through again and again from Aneurin, almost as if the draw of performing is something that fate has put upon him rather than a choice he’s making – a calling to create characters in worlds which are alternative to this one.

Once he’s started naming roles that he’d love to play, it’s hard to stop him, as he becomes so enthusiastic and animated.

“Doctor Who is a very exciting role as well, that would be fun to play.

“Onstage one day I’d love to play Stanley from [Tennessee Williams play] A Streetcar Named Desire, maybe in 10 years’ time when I’m more of a man and more in a position to play that role.

“After that, to move into Bond would probably be pretty good.

“I’ll set on that path; I’ll reach for it in my career and if I get close I know I’ll be doing all right.”

With his dreams of filling James Bond’s handmade shoes, his hopes are undoubtedly pinned high, but if anyone can, a creative dynamo like Aneurin surely can.

Although he acknowledges Hollywood work would probably require a move to Los Angeles, he’s prepared to leave his beloved homeland to fulfil his dreams.

“I’ve already made connections with the Taffia in LA, I’m just one of the ones who is based in London.

“I couldn’t see myself living out there permanently, but I really enjoy travelling and seeing different parts of the world.

“I don’t think you can just be in the UK; well, some people do, but my ambition is very big and to fulfil that, I almost hope that one day LA does come knocking in a big way.

“Being open to opportunities in my work is unbelievably important, it’s as important as making sure the projects I say yes to are the right ones, and being able to hold back and say no if I think that it’s going to be wrong for me.

“You have to be open-minded because you never know what job is going to be the next great job.

“You don’t know what’s around the corner, you don’t know what’s going to work and what isn’t.

“That’s part of the excitement about it all.”

Citadel is released in cinemas Friday. The White Queen continues on BBC One on Sunday at 9pm