Harold Pinter always got nervous before he went on stage This was the second time I worked with Harold as an actor. The first time we acted together, which was also the first time we met, was on his play No Man's Land in 1993 and we very nearly ended up having a fight over something trivial. Harold was rather Picasso-like in his ferociousness - he was a volatile character and as he started to take off his jacket I remember thinking, 'I hope I don't have to headbutt Harold Pinter. He once boasted to me that he could take off his glasses faster than anybody. But after this nearly-fight we became firm, firm friends. We shared a dressing-room during No Man's Land, during which time he was secretly writing Moonlight - he hadn't written anything for about 15 years - and it was very exciting for me to be there. It became a big joke among the cast to ask Harold when he was going to write his next play because it made him completely furious. I would wind him up by saying, 'Don't worry, you could just write three lines and they would still put it on at the National," which would make him even angrier. For the next 10 years I worked with him - as an actor, director and writer - almost exclusively, perhaps to the detriment of my career, because I admired him so greatly and his great body of work. He became like a father figure to me - in this photograph I was 38 and he was 67. I loved his tremendous energy and that he was so certain in his views. He knew what he believed in and he stuck to it, which is rare these days. He was also very loyal and, of course, passionate. We had a wonderful relationship and I miss him very much. We shared a dressing-room again for the play in this photograph, The Collection. It was put on at the Donmar Warehouse as part of a triple bill of plays all written by Harold - the other two were The Lover and A Kind of Alaska. I had never set foot in the Donmar before - I went on to become its associate director in 2007 - but this was the beginning of my career there. The Collection was about a fashion collection, but that brown corduroy suit I'm wearing looks pretty dodgy. Also on stage is Colin McFarlane as Bill. Funnily enough the next play I did after this was The Dumb Waiter (again, written by Harold) at the Royal Court and I wore another brown corduroy suit. I remember a friend afterwards begging me to never put one on again. At this moment in the play Harold is asking me for a glass of orange juice, and though he has a smile on his face, it is almost satanic. His smile never quite meant what it seemed to. Harold was brilliant in this - he was a great actor - but it was always rather humbling to see him getting just as nervous as me in our dressing-room before he went on stage; it somehow stopped him being so formidable. Douglas Hodge directs Harvey Fierstein's 'Torch Song Trilogy" at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London SE1, until August 12 (020-7378 1713; menierchocolatefactory.com)