Ross King: Hornblower Ioan Gruffudd is set to star in UnREAL

As a Glaswegian I’m not impressed by them – but I do enjoy a horn blower.

Steady on, missus, I mean a Hornblower.

I count my mate Ioan Gruffudd as one of my mates here in La-La Land.

The big Welshman, who shot to fame in the UK in the cracking ITV drama Hornblower, is a great guy.

I was chatting to him about his current projects and his love of performing Shakespeare, which he did at the Britweek celebrations in Los Angeles not long ago.

Recently, Ioan was the lead role in the fantasy drama series Forever.

It’s just been announced he’s set to star in the second series of UnREAL, which you can see on the Lifetime in the UK.

But the 42-year-old Cardiff-born actor has one eye on the future.

“I’m at a stage of my life – married with two beautiful daughters, aged two and six – so the natural process will be to choose projects I’m passionate about,” Ioan told me.

“It’s easier to get up out of bed in the morning that way. Hopefully I’ll go on to produce and direct things that I’m interested in, that’s the next step.”

As I could get away with being a bit cheeky I asked Ioan what his worst habit is on set.

“I spend too much time getting to where I need the scene to be and in television you don’t have time to do that,” he admitted.

“When I did Forever I had all these interesting speeches to do and I wanted to get them right.

“There’s simply not enough hours to do it!”

I know how Ioan feels – I need a few more hours in the day myself.

What do Thierry Henry, Gary Barlow, Gerard Butler, Lorraine Kelly and me all have in common?

We’re all backing the Kiltwalk which today will see 5,000 people walking from Hampden Park to Loch Lomond to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for Scotland’s children.

Kiltwalk is now guaranteed by The Hunter Foundation and me and Gerry Butler helped out by doing some wee promo videos together.

Thankfully he didn’t land a punch on me in this one!

There’s still time to go online and make a donation to Kiltwalk where every penny, raised will go to children who need it most.

Ross King: No, Gerry didn’t want to punch me 12 times!