Actor Dennis tells of spy interview (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

Actor Dennis tells of spy interview

3:14am Tuesday 7th February 2012 in National Entertainment News © Press Association 2011

Outnumbered star Hugh Dennis was approached to work for the secret service while he was at university, but said he would make "a terrible spy".

The actor and comic, who first found fame as part of a duo with Steve Punt before going on to star in The Mary Whitehouse Experience, was approached while he was studying at Cambridge.

He told the Radio Times: "I went down to Carlton House Terrace [in Westminster] for an interview.

"I can't remember very much about it other than thinking I'd make a terrible spy. They did the normal, 'Are you homosexual?, Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?' I recall this one man just stared at me silently for ages. And I thought, 'I don't think this is for me.'"

Dennis, who plays stressed-out father Pete Brockman in Outnumbered, eventually took a job as a management trainee with Unilever before getting his break in comedy.