Ever since he came to prominence in Four Weddings and a Funeral back in 1994, John Hannah hasn't stopped working. He's been in more than 70 films and over 40 TV shows, yet the prodigious performer puts his longevity down to chance, not talent. “I think I've been very lucky," the 64-year-old humbly believes. "I don't think I'm particularly talented or funny, but I think I have a gift for meeting talented and good people who have helped me along the way. For me that's been the best gift." He’s probably being too modest. From Sliding Doors to The Mummy, in which he plays Rachel Weiz’s comedic brother, to his brooding incarnation of troubled Edinburgh detective Rebus in the BBC self-titled drama, Hannah has always delivered for viewers – as he’s certain to do again in his latest TV detective drama Benidorm is Murder, more of which later.

The Scottish-born actor’s warm voice is also a delight to listen to even when he’s not on scrren, hence why he’s narrated six series of the BBC travel competition show Race Across The World since 2019. Featuring teams of two who must race across a stretch of the world in the fastest time without flying, it has reaffirmed Hannah’s belief in the goodness of humankind despite the gloomy news cycle often painting a bleak alternative. "I believe in the goodness of people,” he says. “The world is such a terrible place at the moment, isn't it? But I inherently believe in the human race, and I think Race Across the World is a really great example of parts of the world where we perceive people have nothing, then you see how generous they are and how open they are to helping others."

Hannah also puts his faith in humanity down to his upbringing in East Kilbride, south of Glasgow, the country's first new town which had a population of around 70,000 when Hannah came along in the Sixties. "The neighbours were all in and out of each other's houses all the time," he recalls, "and I used to call our next-door neighbours Aunt Ellen and Uncle Frank, even though we weren't related."

Then there was a family trip to a camping site in Blackpool. Hannah’s toolmaker father, also named John, his mother Susan (who worked as a cleaner for Marks & Spencer) and his two elder sisters all piled into the car. "Somewhere along the way, in the Lake District, my dad's car blew up and we had to pull off into this garage, where they said it was going to take a week to get a new engine part," Hannah smiles at the memory.

"They let us put our tent up next to the garage and they had toilets and showers there, which they also let us use. Basically we had a free week in the Lake District and it was fantastic, in this big tent that had a separate bedding area."

When we meet, Hannah is staying in a luxurious hotel in Monte-Carlo with his wife of 30 years, the actress Joanna Roth – who he met when they were both in a production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and with whom he has two children, 22-year-old fraternal twins Gabriel and Astrid.

He’s on the French Riviera for the 2026 Monte-Carlo TV Festival, where he is a VIP guest. Unlike contestants on Race Across the World, he's not on a tight budget or wondering where he'll lay his head that night. But Hannah reckons he'd be a worthy participant on the celebrity version of the TV travel show, ahead of narrating the forthcoming series.

"I think I'd be great at it, actually. Being a man, I don't need a map and I don't need to read the manual. In fact, my daughter has this expression for when she's out with me, which is a DUD - Dad's Unintentional Detour. I get lost a lot, but then I like getting lost because there's a challenge in finding your way back out of things."

A keen runner until a knee injury put paid to that, he says: "In the last 20 years I've been doing a lot of cycling post knee surgery and I take my bike with me whenever I work. It gives me something to do and it keeps me out of trouble, and I get lost all the time. I come to a corner and I turn left or right, and I always find my way back somehow. It's kind of a metaphor for life in terms of just trusting it will all be OK."

And life is good right now. In his new detective drama, Benidorm is Murder, he plays a burned-out ex-policeman named Dennis Govan who is now running a Scottish pub in the Spanish resort. Dennis is miserably "sitting on the side-lines in this bar, not sure what he’s doing" until aspiring actress and British crime show obsessive Rosa, played by Carolina Bécquer, strides into his life and ends up becoming his partner in crime-solving.

"It's brilliantly written and every character in it has a purpose and a goal," Hannah says of what lured him in. "It's a very difficult line to walk – to create real people you believe in and all the drama but also find the humour without it being slapstick or broad comic strokes."

Hannah was expecting the Spanish resort to be more raucous. He was housed in a village away from the hustle and bustle and spent his weekends cycling up and down the coast. "And I didn't go out at night," he admits. "But whenever you are filming anywhere where there are crowds and drink involved, everybody always wants to shout something and get involved. We were filming right on the seafront and I was surprised how respectful they were."

Hannah’s first holiday abroad was at age 19, when he went backpacking around Europe after he handed in his notice as an apprentice electrician. During his free time he'd been part of a repertory theatre club and enjoyed it so much that, after he returned from his two-week Euro jaunt, he enrolled at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama where he "became a bit pretentious and sat around not talking to any of these flighty drama student types".

He did theatre and a few small TV roles for almost a decade before Four Weddings and a Funeral put him on the map. "I was kind of an overnight success nine years after leaving drama school," he deadpans.

Surprisingly, that success irked him. A few years earlier, he'd missed an audition for a National Theatre production because of an urgent dental appointment. "Then right after Four Weddings came out I was offered a lead role at the National. It was a role which I would never in a million years have been considered for prior to that and that really angered me. It made me cross about how fickle the industry is."

It didn't put him off acting, though. Hannah’s CV is a vast one, ranging from Sliding Doors and The Mummy franchise on the big screen and Spartacus: Blood and Sand, its follow-up Gods of the Arena and a 22-episode stint on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on the small one.

"Being part of the Marvel universe was exciting," he says of the latter, "but usually I try to avoid being in anything that runs for too long because if I get bored I imagine the audience are probably getting bored too."

It’s why he left Rebus after only one series to the disappointment of many.

Hannah was, he admits, a bit snobby about being in the big-budget Mummy movie and its subsequent sequels. "I'd come from a more of a serious background in the theatre and it felt a bit stupid pretending to be a zombie and what have you, but then I saw a test screening in America and the audience went wild. So when it came to the sequels I was like, 'I'll do whatever you want!'"

A fourth film in the franchise is currently in development. "Everybody's coming back," he says of co-stars Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, "and there'll be some surprises in the comebacks as well, but I don't know what I'm allowed to say yet, so I'd better not say any more."

Hannah now lives in Richmond, after a brief move to the Chilterns in Oxfordshire. "That was such a mistake and we hated it," he laughs about having to contend with speeding cars and being stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do.

While there he did, however, get to attend a party hosted by film director Paul Greengrass. "Matt Damon, whom I'd met many years earlier, was there and he remembered my name. I was really impressed by that because I never remember anybody's names. I walk into a room for an audition, I meet three people and within a minute I don't remember who's who."

Another time he was in one of the big New York department stores when he spotted Robin Williams. Talk somehow turned to Hannah’s knee injury. "And it was like I'd suddenly flipped his switch. He ended up going off on a whole spiel about my knee that lasted for around half an hour. I couldn't get away from him."

Hannah has lots more stories, apparently, but time is up. I tell him he should write a book. He smiles, then humble to the last adds: "I should, shouldn't I? If only I could write!"