I've been with the Factory for a few months now. After approaching it with total cynicism, I have actually loved every minute. It's great to have a creative outlet every week with a group of people who are in this industry for the right reasons.

I trained as an actor at Central (that's how I know Alex and Tim) and as a writer on the Royal Court Young Writers Programme.

As I'm half-German, I have spent most of my TV acting career in uniforms and side-partings. "Nuremberg" (Channel 4), "D-Day" (BBC), "The Dambusters" (Channel4), "20th Century Battlefields" (BBC) - yes, I am truly Rent-A-Nazi.

So when that got a bit boring, I decided to write a play, basically as a showcase for those of my acting skills that the Third Reich hadn't quite brought out. The Pleasance picked it up and decided that"Minor Irritations" should become the first play to be supported by their newly set-up Charlie Hartill Special Reserve Fund, which meant they gave me the money and the space to produce it at the Edinburgh Festival.

The play did very well and subsequently we transferred to London, Guildford (Yvonne Arnaud) and to Dublin, where I was nominated for the 2006 Oscar Wilde Award for Writing.

Through this experience creating my own projects has become incredibly important to me and writing has become a passion of its own, rather than just being a way to forward my acting career. I have just finished writing my second play "Public Property" which was recently showcased at the Hampstead Theatre with the fabulous Allan Corduner in the lead role, and I am working on a screenplay and a novel. Over the next few months Beige Magazine is publishing some of my short stories/editorials, which is also very exciting.

If I'm not doing all that, I also work as a voice-over artist for XBox, MTV, Nickelodeon, documentaries, video games, audio plays, commercials and corporate videos. Oh, and I sing too.

Influences and people I admire are Woody Allen, David Mamet, Jim Henson, Tony Kushner, Stevie Wonder, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Martin McDonagh, Sarah Kane, Patrick Marber, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Judi Dench, Robert Downey jr, Anjelica Huston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, etc...

My favourite play is 'The Pillowman' by Martin McDonagh.

My favourite film is a tie between 'Bullets Over Broadway', 'Wonder Boys', 'Husbands & Wives', 'Magnolia', 'Manhattan Murder Mystery', 'Bulworth', 'Sex, Lies & Videotape' and 'The Muppets Take Manhattan'.