What would you expect if you had arranged to meet Gene Hunt in the middle of Soho? A shoot-out in a boozer? The Audi Quattro fired up and screeching through the streets? Certainly not a polite man arriving in his PR's office 20 minutes late, apologising about the traffic from Richmond.
In person, Philip Glenister isn't quite the larger-than-life character he has inhabited for the last five years. His sideburns are a little less bushy, his hair a little less windswept, and the heels of his Chelsea boots are a lot shorter than Hunt's snakeskin boots ("I'll be putting those on eBay, depending on how series three goes"). Glenister admits he hasn't quite got used to the idea of saying goodbye to Hunt, now that they have wrapped up the final series of Ashes to Ashes, and peppers his sentences with the sort of language they couldn't get away with on the show ("We never used the F-word. He says 'bastard' and 'bloody' . . . People didn't swear that much in the 70s").
As he talks, his relaxed middle-England accent drops into the occasional actorly "received pronunciation" – a nod to all the period dramas he has worked on, perhaps – before surrendering to that unmistakable Mancunian growl when he's delivering one of Hunt's lines. It's a great party trick, letting the Gene genie out of the bottle – and he does an uncanny Harvey Keitel.
Nothing is taken too seriously ("It feels very odd at the age of 47 to be pretending to be some maverick cop from the 70s"), and nor is he too downcast by Mark Thompson's proposed cuts to the BBC, announced the morning we talk. "If they're putting some of that £600m into drama then I welcome it." He is, though, realistic about Ashes' tight budgets and on-the-hoof shooting schedule. "You don't have the luxury of rehearsals, but you also don't have the luxury of getting it wrong. You really have to hit your mark, get your lines out, and hope you've got a bleeding good editor!"
It is only five years since Hunt first stepped out of his Cortina into the nation's consciousness (in Life on Mars), but the role will follow Glenister for the rest of his career – not that that seems to bother him. The part was originally sold by his agent as "a cross between Back to The Future and The Sweeney", and it's still not a bad description.
"The script's first 14 pages just appeared like a run-of-the-mill cop show," Glenister recalls. "Then you got to page 15 and it was like, BAM! Sam Tyler wakes up and suddenly you're in the 70s. I couldn't put it down. Originally, he was called Gene Burroughs – he wasn't even Gene Hunt." The name "Burroughs" rolls around Glenister's mouth like he's savouring a fine meat pie. "As it turned out, they'd spent about five years trying to get it made, but nobody wanted it – nobody."
The world that writers Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham had created is a knowing homage – so much more than an episode of I Love 1982 with added car chases. The scripts, of course, are littered with inventive putdowns and quotable lines – most of them from Hunt.
Glenister laughs: "He's a wordsmith! A police poet!" Yet out of all the monologues Hunt has delivered over the years, his favourite isn't one of the laugh out-loud one-liners. "He's in his office and he's looking at this poster of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with a scotch and a fag in his hand, and Sam Tyler walks in and says, 'Which one are you?' And Gene replies, 'I'm all three.' I love that, it just sums him up."
Glenister says they have continued to emphasise this western theme in the new series, staging scenes with a new character, DCI Jim Keats (Daniel Mays), as a High Noon-style standoff in the middle of the CID office. "He'd be that end and I'd be this end, sparring verbally with each other." Glenister stands up, legs apart like Gary Cooper, hands like pistols hovering at his side. "Bang, bang – we purposefully choreograph it with that in mind. Gene thinks of himself as the sheriff."
Keats has arrived to investigate Hunt's punch-first, ask-questions-later school of policework – a way, presumably, for the writers to tackle the criticism that the show treads a fine line between delighting in Hunt's reactionary, anti-PC views, and ironically undercutting them with the reactions of Sam and Alex. With some of his less enlightened remarks about black and gay people or women, it's fair to say that Hunt is not a Guardian reader, and the popularity of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes might in part be down to a split in its audience. Do some fans watch ironically, while others enjoy the chance to hear someone "telling it like it was"?
"It's a fine line – a weird one," Glenister says, thoughtfully. "A lot of people compare it to Alf Garnett, where you feel that the characters, but not necessarily the audience, are laughing at this man, and he's unaware of that. But you never feel people are laughing at Gene; his ignorance is based on knowledge. I don't think he's homophobic, racist – if anything, speaking to police officers who remember that period, they say to me, 'That was nothing! That doesn't go near what I experienced when I was in the force in the mid-70s.'"
The other topic that occupies fans is the tension between Gene and Alex – but it doesn't sound like they're going to be wrapping the series up romantically. "We often get asked when are they going to kiss, but as soon as that happens you don't have a show. Anyone can do that; it's been done. Move on, boring."
When we last left Hunt at the end of the second series, he had shot Alex in the line of duty, then done a runner. With mock disappointment, Glenister says the writers didn't go for his idea about where to take the storyline: Gene hiding out on the Costa del Crime ("Think of the gags! Sunbathing, covered in oil and sand – like giant chicken kievs!") Instead, we pick up with Hunt returning to CID a few months later. "There is a nice line where I say to Bolly: 'I've been on the run. I've been abroad. The Isle of Wight. That was shit. So I went to Torremolinos. Best full English I've ever had.'" You can tell how much he enjoys delivering Gene's lines, pacing the "full English" payoff with a standup's timing.
UK viewers have now also had a chance to see the less successful 2008 US remake of Life on Mars. Although it eventually took the title a little too literally, it had a decent cast, with Harvey Keitel as Lieutenant Gene Hunt. The first Glenister heard about it was on holiday in the Channel Islands. "So I'm having drinks with friends, the kids are on the beach playing, and next thing I'm on the phone with the Bad Lieutenant! He said, 'You know, how'm I gonna fucking better you, baby? You play this part too damn good! You fuck!' I said something very stupid like, 'Oh, but you're Harvey Keitel, you'll be fine!'"
Before Life on Mars, Glenister was not, it's fair to say, the sort of actor who had stars like Keitel tracking him down on holiday. He'd had numerous appearances in credible dramas without landing that killer part. But by the time he stepped into Mr Carter's breeches in Cranford last year, in between the second and third series of Ashes, there was no question he would be recognised alongside Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton and the rest of the villagers.
Now, though, he's looking forward to life after Hunt – starting with Bel Ami, a period drama based on the Guy de Maupassant novel. This should see him add a few more Hollywood players to his speed dial: he's playing Uma Thurman's husband alongside Robert Pattinson, Christina Ricci and Kristin Scott Thomas. Yet there's a refreshing lack of guile when he insists it's not part of some "gameplan" to move from television to film.
TV is, after all, in Glenister's genes: his father, John, worked as a director on everything from Z Cars to Maigret, and his brother Robert plays conman Ash Morgan in Hustle. He is also married to the actor Beth Goddard (Suze in Gimme, Gimme, Gimme), who was also cast in the final series of Ashes. Working in the same profession helps, he says, but it's not like they bring their work home.
"We have two small girls, and a very normal family life. Millie's eight, and obviously aware of it. She says, 'Dad, are you famous?' And I say, 'No. Only in Sheen.' She thinks I'm the mayor of Richmond!"
The new series of Ashes to Ashes starts later this month.