Jack Bannon takes on the butler

British actor Jack Bannon learned early on that he's a rotten salesman. While he was struggling to be an actor he worked at the Gap for seven years, from the time he was 16. "I was so bad that they used to encourage me to go into the stockroom and pile things up rather than be on the shop floor because I didn't really like it," he said.

"They require, 'Hey, welcome to the Gap!' And I used to just stand there in the back and not want to talk to any of the customers. So they chucked me into the stockroom, which I did used to enjoy — unpacking boxes and things like that. It was much more my sort of thing."

He claims he's not really shy, maybe just a little reserved. In fact, he wishes he were more outgoing when he first encounters strangers. "Whenever I meet people I'm very quiet and sit back and assess the room sometimes," he said.

Assessing the room is not a bad quality when it comes to his new alter ego. Bannon is starring as the young Alfred Pennyworth, Batman's sagacious valet, in the origin story "Pennyworth."

The 10-episode series, which premieres Sunday on Epix, takes place in the 1960s. Alfred Pennyworth is a former Special Forces officer who forms a security company and goes to work for billionaire Thomas Wayne (Bruce Wayne's father.)

When Bannon first read the script he thought, at 27, he was too young for the role. "I do tape auditions with a friend of mine who's an actor as well," he explains.

"And I nearly didn't do a self-tape because I thought, 'Awww, I'm not right.' My friend phoned me; I was going back home on the weekend to Norwich to see my parents, and he phoned me on Thursday and asked me to help him with a self-tape. I said, 'Yeah, no worries.' I thought I may as well do mine. Why not? And I did it."

He did it with zero expectations, but his...