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The news that Stroud was to get a Japanese restaurant. “To be honest with you, this is fairly new, this place. We were due to meet up in London and have a walk around Hyde Park, but looking at the forecast yesterday I thought it somewhat drier to take a train ride and go for a bite on his turf.
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“You like ramen and stuff?” he asks me as we sit. It’s a look few near-40-year-old fathers could get away with outside of their own home gyms: think more Dalston barista by way of a Mayfair gallerist who specialises in unboxed Pokémon NFTs. He’s also sporting a perfectly (genuinely) distressed cobalt-blue chore jacket, plus a battered navy baseball cap, something he’ll turn and wear backwards – backwards! – once our bowls of spicy chicken noodle soup arrive. Today, the 39-year-old Northern Irish actor is dressed precisely as a leading man should dress for a casual, early autumnal Monday appointment with a member of the press: a loose T-shirt the colour of a white sheet that’s been on a warm rinse cycle with a teabag non-fashion sneakers beige khaki trousers tight enough to make his noticeably toned Peloton calves resemble a couple of pythons who have both swallowed tennis balls.
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