TheGuardian.com – 15th June, 2015

Richard E Grant grew up in colonial Swaziland, where he says DIY was anathema to the lifestyle. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer.

Interview by Rosanna Greenstreet

What’s the most impressive thing you’ve ever made?

Back in the early 90s I resolved to make my little daughter a doll’s house replicating every room in our house. I’d made a marionette theatre when I was a teenager, so a doll’s house was straightforward. It was a success.

Tell us your biggest DIY disaster?

In 1985 I’d been out of work for nine months and decided to redecorate the upstairs loo. I thought red gloss paint would do the trick and created an exotic Chinese lacquered “retreat”. The paint kept slipping off the surface, until it resembled that scene in Carrie when Sissy Spacek is drenched in blood.

Any DIY tips you learnt from your parents?

Growing up in colonial Swaziland, the idea that my parents could or would have done DIY was anathema. My father’s DIY talents lay in playing cricket and unscrewing a bottle of a Scotch every evening.

Near-death DIY injury?

I was up a mulberry tree in the south of France in 1994 cutting off a dead branch and sawed through a hornets nest. I was still curled up in a foetal position at 3am.

Richard’s fragrance, Jack-Covent Garden is available at jackperfume.co.uk