Heart-throb actor Rufus Sewell has confessed he would be too scared to move to Hollywood - for fear of turning into a "jerk".

The 33-year-old, whose roles have included a host of swarthy romantic heroes, says he was turned off the idea of emigrating to tinseltown by the thought of being seduced by its glitzy lifestyle.

Sewell, about to be seen as Ali Baba in an all-star May Bank Holiday production of One Thousand and One Nights on BBC1, said: "If I were going to live in America, I'm sure I would already be there.

"I've worked all over the world in the past few years, but London is where I love.

"Los Angeles, actually, scares me a bit, because people are quite susceptible to the lifestyle.

"I think if you live in a place that's completely about the film industry then it's bound to affect you in some way.

"I've seen people turn into jerks and I think it's more important than anything else that I remain the kind of person that I like."

Sewell said the biggest test of endurance he had faced while filming his new mini-series in Turkey was not the necessity of spending 14 days alone with a small crew and a camel - but having to drink instant coffee.

"We were staying in a hotel which served the worst coffee I've ever had in my life," he said. "The staff seemed to think that we all wanted instant, rather than the delicious local stuff.

"And I remember saying: `Can I have coffee with milk?' And this guy stopped in his tracks, turned around and said: `With milk? From the cow?'

"He came back with a pint mug of instant coffee and a pint of condensed milk. For some reason, I could not convince him that this was not my favourite drink in the world and, from then on, he brought it to me every morning."

Sewell, who shot to fame as Will Ladislaw in the BBC's Middlemarch and whose films include Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, Dark City and The Woodlanders, will soon be seen in two new big budget movies.

He has just been playing a satanic cult leader in Bless the Child, a movie starring Oscar winner Kim Basinger and Christina Ricci, and is about to fly to Prague to make A Knight's Tale.

© Press Association