Actor Simon Callow has said he does not want to “go on and on” with the help of prescription drugs as he gets older.

The 68-year-old, who is best known for starring in 1990s rom-com Four Weddings And A Funeral, has also spoken of the age gap between himself and husband Sebsastian Fox, 35, and their “different energies”.

Asked what he sees in the mirror, Callow told Radio Times magazine: “I see a nearly 70-year-old man in good health and vigour, but with a finite amount of time left on this planet.

UK Theatre Awards – London
Simon Callow

“Realistically, so many of my friends are dying and I don’t want to go on and on if it means taking vast numbers of prescription drugs.”

Callow married Fox in 2016, and he said that he and his husband have not had a discussion about his ageing.

Callow said: “I’ve lived! Not to have lived would have been the worst thing.

“Though the subject is given more vivid importance because my husband Seb is 35. We haven’t had that conversation actually, but I suppose we shall.”

Callow added that he and his husband have “very different energies” and that while Fox is “very lively and in fantastic physical condition”, he himself is “always up before him, doing whatever needs to be done”.

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Although best known as gay reveller Gareth in Four Weddings, Callow has had success as a writer and theatre director – and is also known for his multiple portrayals of novelist Charles Dickens.

Callow said: “(There are) parts I want to play, films I’d like to direct,” he said, “books that not only would I like to write, but I have to write because I’m contracted to.”

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