David Beckham: My Side

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Stevens learned that Brian Cox, the Scottish actor who played Logan Roy, is friends with Ferguson and used that relationship to get on the good side of the famously irascible football manager. “Brian signed a copy of Fergie’s book which had just come out and I gave it to Sir Alex. That helped get more time with him. And he knew our show. He asked me ‘Why aren’t you going to do a fifth season?’ I told him because it’s over, man.”

There's good stories about how he (awkwardly) began dating Victoria, the sending off in the 1998 World Cup against Argentina, then some death threats and kidnapping plots. I’ve never been through what David and Victoria went through. I tried to put myself in David’s head. I felt at times I was going through what he went through. I wanted the audience to feel what he felt. I hope that comes through.” It was the first time that me and Victoria had been put under that kind of pressure in our marriage," he added. He just loved being a footballer

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The third reason is most telling. Stevens isn’t just some mug who doesn’t know the beautiful game. Although the Chicago-born Stevens will be a fan of the Cubs (baseball) and Bears (American football) until he dies, he also has something in his wardrobe that marks him out as a soccer stan: a collection of Ivory Coast football shirts. “I went to Stamford Bridge [home of Chelsea FC] and fell in love with Didier Drogba.” What were you doing there? “The first documentary I produced was Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos in 2006. At the time I didn’t know football. Then the producer, John [Battsek], takes me to see Chelsea play and, well, I fell in love. I was aching," he said. "I was hurting. I'd roll out of the bed in the morning because I was in so much pain."

He just wanted me to be the best footballer that I could be and to be married to a local girl that wasn't a superstar," he said.After being signed by Alex Ferguson as a youth team player, moving from London to Manchester, he came through the youth ranks alongside "The Golden Generation" with the likes of: Giggs, Butt, Scholes and the Neville brothers. Because of the Hollywood writers’ strike, Stevens hasn’t been able to take acting gigs. Not that he hasn’t been busy. He’s beaten Hodgkin’s lymphoma, had two kids with his wife, the film-maker Alexis Bloom whom he married in 2017, and is currently executive producing her upcoming documentary about 60s It Girl Anita Pallenberg.