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Former Holby City star Alex McQueen, who played anaesthetist, Dr Keith Greene on the BBC medical drama has admitted he held down a second job while working on the show. The 52-year-old, who is the president of The Actors' Trust, made the revelation in an exclusive chat with Express.co.uk to discuss the publication of a major report from the organisation, which exposes a widespread crisis of poor mental health among UK actors.

Speaking about his own experiences of keeping body and soul together in the tough business, he confessed he had worked as a tour guide at the Houses of Parliament during his time on Holby City - but was forced to leave because the show raised his profile. "I think the best thing you can do is think of yourself having a portfolio of activities, as just trying to be purely reliant on acting income would be a fool's errand," he said when asked what actors could do to help themselves. "I, for example, was a tour guide for about 10 years while I was doing Holby City. So I did Holby City as a sort of semi-regular actor, and then on the days I wasn't filming, I was a tour guide in the Houses of Parliament. So that gave me an additional income, but it also gave me access to fascinating people and experiences," he said.

"I'd take tour groups around the chamber of the House of Commons and the House of Lords and other tour guides would point out key statues of Mrs Thatcher, Lloyd George...and then they'd turn and point at me and say, for those of you like Holby City, you'll see Dr Keith Greene," he laughed at the memory.

"Some people would come over and want an autograph or a selfie, and it would then disrupt my tour, so I sort of had to give it up towards the end, especially when I once I got involved with The Inbetweeners and things like that, then I did have to step back from it."

Despite that, The Thick Of It Star said he would still encourage younger actors to spread their wings outside of the profession. "I would encourage younger actors not to think of themselves as I can only act. The only thing I'm going to do is the acting, and I'll do nothing else. I think that would be an error," he insisted.

In the House of Lords, Baroness Twycross acknowledged the report, citing "the importance of the issues it raises, underlining the need to better support those working across the creative industries. She also highlighted the Government's commitment to "working with industry and partners to promote safer, more inclusive working environments across the acting profession."

Asked why the Trust decided to now commission this report, which highlights a widespread crisis of poor mental health (including suicidal thoughts), loneliness and financial insecurity among UK actors, Alex responded: "It really does go in peaks and troughs, and when it's great, it is amazing. But when it's bad, it really is bad. So it's those extremes that the Actors' Trust is there for, to try and take the edge off.

"Ultimately, because we are a reasonably new board at the Actors Trust, and we need to build a strategy. We thought the best way to do that was to sort of do an MRI scan of the industry, which has never really been done before. So this is the first and biggest survey of the acting world ever, and we can use the results that we found to modify and recalibrate what it is that the actors trust do and what we do."

Alex hopes they can use these findings to help the younger generation of actors as they come through the ranks. "I think (one thing that is) still difficult is the way younger actors are treated. There's a huge amount of loneliness that goes into it, because there's no central office where all actors go, and they're not working.

"It is quite a lonely activity in that regard. And I think younger, younger professionals don't have the confidence and courage necessarily to stand up to poor quality behaviour that you can find on in theatres and TV sets, etc. So even though it's even though there has been ability, I think there's still room for protecting certainly the younger cohort," he said.

Actors' Trust supports professional actors and stage managers across the UK with financial aid, mental health services, wellbeing support, and career guidance.