This is Hull and East Riding --IT BEGAN, as many of the best stories do, with a fight over a girl.
Jon Campling, whose roles have included a Death Eater in the Harry Potter franchise, cannot remember who the girl was. But the Hull-born actor is thankful it happened.
If it wasn't for the dispute, the then teenage Jon would not have got back into acting.
And that, in turn, would not have led to him going on to win a series of roles in horror films.
"I dated a girl I met through CB radio, which was quite a big thing back in the 1980s," said Jon.
"Then we broke up and she started talking to another guy, which I was a bit jealous about.
"It ended up with me and him goading each other on the CB. I felt like I hated him. I said 'where are you? I'll come round'. He gave me the address and it looked like it was going to be a set to."
Instead, sense won out over bravado.
"We were having a cup of tea, when his brother, Lee, came home from Hull Truck Youth Theatre.
"My world stopped – for three years I had not thought about acting at all. For the next three hours, I picked his brains about it.
"This whole part of my life that I had boxed off, burst out."
Today, the 46-year-old – an engaging, affable man far removed from the psychos he has portrayed on film – is back in his home city.
Up from London, where he lives with his wife, Ali, Jon is visiting friends and family.
He rifles off anecdotes, memories and jokes about the "costume I never take off"– his beard and long hair.
"It is weirdly not that limiting," he said.
"You can be a pirate, a drug dealer, a drug taker, a monk, a biker, a rock star, a hippy, and a university lecturer – a corduroy jacket, glasses, and a pony-tail and I'm your Open University guy.
"Then there's Jesus, God, a variety of demons and Death. As you can imagine, it's all amazing fun compared with playing 'man in the office'."
The look came to the fore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2.
Released in 2010, it saw Jon playing one of the Death Eaters – a group of wizards and witches led by Harry's nemesis, Lord Voldemort.
"Up until then, the beard and hair were a novelty," he said, with a grin.
"After that, I sat down with my wife and said 'people are taking my hair and beard seriously. I think we could be on to something here'."
Jon, a former pupil at Eastfield Primary and Kingston High School, began acting during his teens with Kirk Ella Amateur Dramatic Society.
It was something he loved, though he abandoned any ambitions to take up an apprenticeship at British Aerospace.
"Saying 'an actor' seemed a bit like saying 'an astronaut' when it came to choosing a job," Jon said.
"My ten-minute career meeting gave me the options of the dole, a Youth Opportunities Scheme, the Armed Forces, or – and this as an outside – apprenticeship."
A neighbour who worked at BA dropped off an application for Jon – and, slightly to his surprise, he found himself accepted an apprentice Airframe Engineer.
The experience was, Jon recalls, a "little weird".
"I ended up on odd departments," he said.
"I found myself in one that involved watching these big machines drilling, which took about 30 minutes each time. It was the only department that had chairs, as the union had argued we should sit down.
"I used to learn my lines and read plays. People would come from other sections to see the guy they'd heard of who read Shakespeare at work."
Eventually, he dropped acting to concentrate on the job.
But after three years, Jon found himself becoming disillusioned.
"There was quite a lot of emphasis on 'When you retire you'll have a good pension'. At 17 or 18, I didn't want to be thinking that way," he said.
"It was well-paid and I spent a while trying to make it work, but Monday morning was always just as depressing."
Then came the fight that never was, and, through joining Hull Truck Youth Theatre, the decision to go on to drama school.
Jon enjoyed his three years at the Birmingham School of Acting, which was located in a former house in the city.
"I loved it, it was quirky. It suited my idea of what I thought drama school was about," he said.
"Every room had an open fire and remnants of when it was a house, with sideboards full of things.
"Boys were not allowed to wear hats in the school. You'd hear a voice saying 'hats off in the house, darling'."
He also began working as a DJ – a sideline that was to prove a regular money-spinner in between acting roles.
"I did that for 20 years," Jon said.
"Until I finally got sick of playing ABBA."
After a regular series of stage roles, he began casting for film parts five years ago.
He has found a niche for himself in the horror market and gritty, British thrillers.
One recent release, Dead End, saw him play a "real psychopath" in a tale of a trip to the countryside that goes badly wrong for a businessman and his family.
This summer comes a departure. He is filming his first leading role in Morning Star, a film based on the Crusades. Though the darker roles are the ones he loves to get his teeth into.
"When I started doing film, I auditioned to be a cheeky Cockney cab driver in a horror film," he said.
"They rang me up and said 'we're sorry, we're not going to cast you as the cabbie, but would you like a bigger role as the sadist?'
"I thought about it. I'd given them cheeky Cockney cabbie and they'd seen murderous sadist – what would happen if I tried to go for those roles?
"So I made a shift out of the parts I'd be given at drama school, tall, reasonably good- looking leading man – those romantic leads.
"Stepping away from that, and going for the darker roles was the best decision I ever made.
"For me, as I lead a fairly normal, sedate life, it is fun to explore all those dark areas and taboos through acting.
"Invariably, the bad guy is the catalyst. He is the one that makes things happen." Reported by This is 10 hours ago.