Russell Tovey wants 10 children.
The 37-year-old actor – who recently reunited with his former fiancé, the rugby player Steve Brockman – wants a huge brood because he feels like he would be a great father.
When asked by the Evening Standard’s ES magazine, how many children he wants, he said: Oh 10, I don’t know, loads, whatever works. I mean it all depends on the size of your house, doesn’t it, whether you can, like, put them all up. I think that probably puts a limit on it."
Although he did not mention Brockman by name, he added: "At some point it will all be out there but it’s all going very, very well and I’m very happy. I wanna be a dad and whatever the ins and outs are of that, I’m exploring. I love my nephews. I love kids. I just feel like I’d be a good dad. I feel like I could provide a fun house and a very cultured upbringing."
Meanwhile, ‘Years and Years’ actor Russell – who had therapy after he and Brockman split up last year – revealed he wishes he had seen a therapist after he was stabbed in the head during a random attack on the train home to Billericay in Essex almost 20 years ago, when he was 18.
He said: "I looked like a little kid, and these two were like blokes, just two horrible people – ****s, basically. But now I look back and think: what must your childhood have been like that you felt it was okay to do that?
"It f***ed me up for about three, four years. I still have a thing, though not as much now, that if I’m walking along and feel nervous, I lose my step, lose my ability to walk properly. I probably should have gone into therapy."
Russell came out to his parents when he was 18 and although he never planned to become an ambassador for the homosexual community, he is proud of who he is and believes the roles he is taking on are "changing the dialogue".
He said: "I just didn’t want to get to a stage where it would be a big thing; it’s always just been who I am and I made a decision at an early stage when I started getting lots of work that it is what it is.
"It wasn’t on my agenda, but you do become an ambassador in some ways if you are successful and you are a ‘something’.
"I felt like I was playing gay characters all the time: people that were in the LGBTQI spectrum, I felt I was covering all of that,’ he says. ‘You’re kind of programmed as an actor to not come out or not take so many gay roles if you are gay, but I felt the roles I was getting offered were changing the dialogue, so I couldn’t not [take them]."
Russell Tovey wants 10 kids
