Actor Andrew Scott dodges questions about Moriarty, but is more than happy to tell STEVE PRATT about his new film focusing on a gay group that raised money for striking Welsh miners in 1984.

ANDREW Scott says he’s enjoying not working after making half a dozen films back-to-back.

“Will Sherlock be the next thing you do then?” I ask innocently, although instantly realising that he may see this as a trick question.

He’s become known to the public through playing the villainous Moriarty in the BBC’s rebooting of the Sherlock Holmes story. The character was killed, apparently came back from the dead and left followers wondering if he’d reappear in future episodes.

No one is saying, which is why the question might be seen as trying to get him to confirm that Moriarty is indeed alive and live and coming back. It certainly makes Scott laugh. “That’s a question and a half,” he says. More laughter. “No, I’m taking a break,” he says with a poker face, leaving the mystery of Moriarty unsolved, for the time being at least.

Scott is in film promotion mode. Pride is the title and he’s proud of the film, based on the true story of an activist lesbian and gay group from London that decides to raise money for striking Welsh miners in 1984. “It’s not often you can speak with enthusiasm about projects but this one we all feel incredibly passionate about,” he says.

He plays Gethin, who runs Gay’s The Word bookshop in London. He’s a Welshman who hasn’t spoken to his mother since coming out. Scott is gay although his experience was very different with an accepting family (and was speaking to his mother on the phone before our interview).

“I suppose I loved the fact that the film was all embracing of very different people. The thing that I hate most in life is the idea of us and them. I love the notion of solidarity.

"There’s nothing I like better than a sense of company, of camaraderie. There’s no doubt that’s what the nucleus of this film is – the idea that fundamentally we’re all the same people.”

He met the real Gethin, although the screen character is an amalgam of him and another character. “The most important thing for us all is to have the stamp of approval from the people whose story we’re telling. Before we sent it out to the world it was important that they supported it.”

Was the gay aspect an attraction for Scott?

“I don’t think I had any more love for this project than anyone else,” he says.

“That’s what extraordinary about it. What I loved was we had a read-through of the script and people were very taken and upset afterwards, whether they were men or women, or working class or middle class or gay or straight. That’s what the essence of the film is. It’s about the Welsh miners and LGSM (Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners) but actually it’s about us all being the same people.

“The fact that there are so many people represented in the film reflects the kind of audience we are aiming for. It’s for everybody. There’s nothing salacious in it for people to be afraid of. It’s for all generations.”

I wonder if he’s interested in directing but he says perhaps in the theatre but teaching interests him more. In his spare time, he works as a mentor for IdeasTap, a charitable organisation the helps young people setting out in the creative industry.

“My mother was a teacher and my father worked with young people so I feel that’s in the blood a little bit more than directing. All those decisions a director has to make, especially on a film set, I don’t know if I could cope with that,” says Scott.

“I get a huge amount out of working with IdeasTap, probably just as much as they do. It’s important for young actors to know that it’s not about making it and that the work you do at 21, even if it’s in a room above a pub, is just as nurturing.”

He began acting as a child. “I was at quite an academic school and acting was a relief, away from that on a Saturday afternoon,” he says. “I was very shy as a child and to some extent still am, but it was a way of expressing yourself. So it’s just something that’s in me and I’ve really, really enjoyed it.”

He made his film debut at 17, then dropped out of a drama degree at Trinity College after six months to join Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. He’s collected a fair number of theatre awards over the past decade but it took Sherlock to give him fame.

“People often say about making it in the industry and being a successful actor. I’ve been working for many years, thank god, in theatre and in television so it’s really nice to have worked with really good people but without too much fanfare. When it does come you know what the good stuff is and what to ignore.”

He’s very proud of Pride. “You promote a lot of stuff and I say this with genuine sincerity that this is one I feel inordinately proud of,” says Scott.

“Having seen the film and the potential it has for a wide audience makes me really excited because I think if films can change the world, and I believe they can in some small way, this is absolutely one of them. I think you’d come out of the film feeling changed.”

Pride (15) opens in cinemas on September 12.