HOLLYWOOD actor Tom Hardy hand-picked a Yorkshire Dales parish councillor to appear in his hit BBC drama Taboo.

John Ward, 66, told the Gazette how excited he was to have played Skull, a gunpowder-smuggling henchman, in the dark and brooding series co-created by Hardy and set in 1814.

"My agent rang me and he said, you're very lucky, Tom Hardy has picked you to be in Taboo" the Ingleton father-of-four told the Gazette.

"I think I just fit in with the year it's made. I just have that period face."

Mr Ward, a former Elvis Presley impersonator and long-distance lorry driver, is juggling his late-blossoming acting career with another new venture. He and his wife Elaine, once a country-and-western singer, have sold their household store in Ingleton and bought the village's popular Italian pizza restaurant, La Tavernetta, on Main Street.

Mr Ward has carved out quite a niche playing 19th century parts alongside such famous names as Love Actually star Bill Nighy. He has just begun filming ITV detective thriller Bancroft, with Sarah Parish, in Manchester, but he always loves returning to the Dales. "It's nice to be back in Ingleton. My wife and kids bring me back to earth. I'm just Dad when I get home."

The Ingleton parish councillor may have packed away his bejewelled Elvis jumpsuits, but he still loves to perform. His unexpected acting break came in 2013 when the BBC's adaptation of Jamaica Inn was being filmed at Kirkby Lonsdale's Market Square. The crew were looking for extras and Mr Ward was cast as a blacksmith. An agent approached him on set and he has been working ever since, including parts in:

- 2016 murder mystery The Limehouse Golem, with Bill Nighy

- forthcoming movie Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, with Jamie Bell and Annette Bening

- ITV drama Houdini & Doyle

- Channel 4's 19th century historical series The Mill

- and new BBC drama Broken, starring Sean Bean as a Catholic priest.

Mr Ward described Bean as "a grand fellow, a down-to-earth sort of guy". The Sharpe actor told him: "It's a different role for me, I've not got a gun and I'm not shooting anybody." Bill Nighy was "just as you see him, really funny", while Tom Hardy was "very amicable".

Mr Ward drives to locations in a van "decked out with a bed and cooker," but on the London set of Taboo the director insisted he stay in a mobile home next-door to Hardy, having travelled so far from the Dales.

"He always has a bodyguard with him," said Mr Ward of the Mad Max: Fury Road actor. "He was all right, was Tom. He's a bit of a fun boy on set; he has a little BB gun and he shoots people in the bottom."

The grandfather-of-three was also delighted to eat dinner beside Hollywood director Sir Ridley Scott - executive producer of Taboo - one day on location.

"It's just surreal. I was standing on set with galleons and these big actors there, and I looked around and I thought, I'm just a country boy from a little village in the Yorkshire Dales, and here I am on this film set with Tom Hardy. They were so nice to me and looked after me."