Anthony Head

Even the best actors need inspiration. Anthony Head took his from The Apprentice. Mr Colubrine is based on the hardest man in business, Sir Alan Sugar. “I watched a fair amount of The Apprentice. Sir Alan doesn’t have an enormous sense of humour and doesn’t seem to show his feelings very much."

“Colubrine is a wide boy made good. He basically started life as a bailiff then, when interest rates hit 15 per cent, he decided to sell off. He’d got loads of repossessed houses on his books so he sold them and made a lot of money. He’s not moved by emotions much. I modelled that intransigence on Alan Sugar.”

In Sold Anthony’s character is the owner of successful estate agency Colubrines. Describing his character he says: “Colubrine is only amused by himself and unpleasant things happening to other people. He doesn’t suffer fools. He likes things done a very particular way. In the series he says ‘I don’t want happy customers’ – because he believes happy customers are not going to come back. He wants them to come back again and again.

“I don’t think it’s even cruel ambition. For him it’s just getting the job done. It’s pure economics. He doesn’t care if customers are satisfied because it’s all about getting them to buy a house.”

Mr Colubrine rarely visits his staff in person. He pops up on screen in the office via a web link.

Anthony laughs: “It’s all about catching people unawares. It was hard to do at first. Your instinct as an actor is to ignore the lens but I had to interact with the camera which made it interesting. Drama is all about conflict and I can imagine not knowing when your boss might pop up on screen to spy on you would be extremely unnerving.”

Anthony hasn’t had much experience with estate agents over the past few years.

“When we were looking for a house in Bath we were on the books of several estate agents. Because we had to drive from London with two small children we had only a limited amount of time to house hunt. We had a very specific idea of what we wanted and so were really frustrated by time wasters who tried to show us round hideous houses we wouldn’t have bought in a month of Sundays.

“Mr Colubrine wouldn’t approve, but a lot of people do want to find a house for life. Some people make a career of buying houses, doing them up and selling them on, but we will never sell our house.

“We were told by a medium where we would find our house and she described it to us exactly. When we finally bought it we were so happy. We’ve been there 12 years; it is such a beautiful home. A dream home.”