AS the son of one of Britain's greatest living playwrights, it was perhaps inevitable that Ed Stoppard would find himself either treading the boards or writing about them.

However, the 33-year-old actor - whose father Tom Stoppard is famed for such plays as Arcadia, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead and Rock N' Roll - insists his career path was not always as clear in his mind.

"I did lots of plays when I was at school (Stowe School, in Buckingham)," a heavily bearded Ed tells me during a snatched lunch hour between rehearsals for his new play On The Rocks at the Hampsted Theatre. "Then, when I was 17, I remember the drama teacher asked me to be in a play and I said: "No" and made up some story about my A-levels, which was total nonsense.

"I had just got to a point where, maybe unconsciously, I thought, Right are you going to do this, or are you not going to do this? And frankly I was just scared to do it. Then I went to university where I studied French."

After a brief respite to munch on part of a beef sandwich, Ed - whose mother was Tom's second wife, the agony aunt and TV presenter Dr Miriam Stoppard - continues: "When I finally left uni, and it was crunch time, I realised instantly and with blinding clarity that I couldn't do any sort of job that involved me putting on a suit and getting on public transport at 8am, and actually what I wanted to do was be an actor. I thought, if you found yourself on your death bed and you never tried it, you would never forgive yourself."

After missing the intake for drama school, Ed worked as a runner for a year on various TV and film projects (which is where he met his wife, the American photographer Amie Stamp) before training at London's prestigious LAMDA, and subsequently going on to land a series of theatre roles.

His potential big break came at the age of 27 when he was cast as Henryk in Roman Polanski's Oscar-winning movie The Pianist, but rather than follow the Hollywood route, Ed returned to theatre, and in 2005 he won plaudits for his title role in the English Touring Theatre's production of Hamlet, opposite Anita Dobson's Gertrude.

"Hamlet is definitely my career highlight, by a length," Ed enthuses.

Ed is now turning his hand to another "extreme" character, DH Lawrence, in Amy Rosenthal's new comedy On The Rocks.

Set in the spring of 1916, Lawrence and his wife Frieda have begun a new life for themselves in the romantic Cornish village of Zennor, and decide to invite their close friends Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry to join them.

Unfortunately, tensions soon bubble to the surface as four friends try to live together, two marriages struggle for survival and a group of writers strive for creativity in the midst of war. For Ed, Lawrence was the type of complex character he enjoys "getting his teeth into".

"DH Lawrence is just an endlessly fascinating character. At the time he was sort of exotic and his views were at odds with a lot of what conventional society thought and that was the first thing that arrested me when I read the script. His philosophy also really appealed to me. This primacy of nature, and spontaneity of instinct and living through ones guts, rather than living through the left side of one's brain, I just adored that. It's how I like to exist, although 99 per cent of the time I don't. It was very attractive, and I was seduced by Amy's portrayal of him."

Playing Ed's onstage wife is former EastEnders actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, who the ruggedly handsome actor readily admits he never saw in all her soap glory.

"I haven't watched EastEnders since I was doing my A-levels, so I didn't know her from the show at all. But in the two weeks I have known her, there is a little bit of me that has fallen in love with her."

Ed is equally gushing about writer Amy (who by coincidence also comes from good thespian stock as the daughter of the late playwright Jack Rosenthal and actress Maureen Lipman) and director Clare Lizzimore who he tells me are "the most delightful people I have ever worked with".

Talking to me just a a few weeks before the first curtain call, Ed admits there is one person who he is eager to see in the audience.

"I hope my father will come and see one of my previews so he can give me one or two useful pieces of advice.

"He has 50 odd years of experience of either reporting on the theatre, writing theatre, sitting in the theatre, watching theatre, and he just has very, very, very good theatrical instincts. He is very honest about my work, but is very generous and thoughtful about how he will present any notes or ideas he has, and 99 times out of 100 they will be on the money and you would be a fool to ignore them."

When I ask if the advice is vice-versa, Ed almost chokes on his lunch, and laughs: "I once gave him a piece of advice about a play. I was about six and gave him an alternative ending. My mother looked at me like I had just found the cure for cancer and my dad sweetly nodded and said: mmm yes, very good,' and that was the end of the conversation."

As one of four boys (including two half-brothers from Tom's first marriage to nurse Josie Ingle), Ed admits he "always wanted a sister", so the arrival of his three girls, Esmé, who is five in October, and twins, Maggie and Evie, who turn two this month, was, according to the actor, "perfection for me".

"I'm not a dad who yearns to kick a football around with his sons," he adds. "I'm much more interested in playing with dolls. My mum, after four boys, would have loved a daughter, so to have three granddaughters is fantastic for her too."

Fatherhood, it seems, has been Ed's defining moment, and he passionately recalls a moment of clarity when he realised how becoming a dad had changed him for good.

"I remember within a few days of Esmé being born, realising that this person had come into my life for whom I would very happily step in front of a gun. But what was really enlightening was that I wouldn't die regretfully or bemoaning the fact that my life had been cut short, I would be in a state of ecstasy, knowing that my death had allowed my daughter to survive and that's something very different. It would probably be the closest I could come to God actually."

Ed, who now lives in East Dulwich with "his girls", speaks at length about his daughters and with an affection that is only matched by his tone when his talks about his wife Amie.

So, after 10 years together, and with seven years of that blissfully married (judging by the way Ed smiles when her name is mentioned), what is the secret to a happy relationship?

"Listening and talking, which Amie taught me entirely," Ed admits. "And making concessions is also important. Lawrence and Frieda were very open with each other, they didn't keep secrets, even if it was secrets like I'm going to cut your throat. They stayed together for 20 years, so they must have been doing something right. Keeping secrets to oneself and not being honest about how one feels - that's what kills relationships."

On The Rocks is at the Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, until August 2. Tickets: 020 7722 9301 or www.hampsteadtheatre.com

2:21pm Thursday 24th July 2008

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