Telegraph.co.uk-Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, Kevin Costner, Russell Crowe, Taron Egerton. All superb Robin Hoods, in very different ways. Egerton, who is about to join their roll call with his gritty new Robin, in a film produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, does not wear Lincoln green, or go riding through the glen. ‘He doesn’t slap thighs,’ grins Egerton.

His Robin is more like an anti-capitalist protester, a hoodie-wearing corruption fighter with a multicultural team of Merry Men. And a kick-ass Maid Marian, of course, in Eve Hewson – who just happens to be Bono’s daughter.

‘It’s high octane and it’s fast and edgy,’ says Egerton, whose fingers are still calloused from all the arrow action. He learnt how to perform next-level archery. ‘I’d be holding up to five arrows in one hand,’ he says, adding that he’d be firing them while leaping through the air. Pretty impressive stuff.

Directed by Otto Bathurst, of Peaky Blinders fame, and filmed in Dubrovnik, this all-new Robin Hood transforms Sherwood into what Egerton describes as a ‘hotchpotch world where there are different skin colours and different voices’.

Relatable, likeable, funny, oh, and hot – Egerton, 29, carries the movie with ease. Despite having graduated from Rada on a seeming fast-track to fame, he is still finding his way out of the chrysalis, still blinking at his new-found success, surprised that designers such as Giorgio Armani want to dress him for events.

Still reeling, in fact, from meeting Mr Armani for the first time. ‘He grabbed me by the face and looked at me in the eyes for about 12 seconds,’ says Egerton. ‘Which doesn’t sound long but it was a long time. Then he just nodded. If I believed in spiritual experiences, that would be one.’

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