Sights
It's always great to see Buckingham Palace [St. James]. Really, if you only have one day in London, for my money, you should walk through Hyde Park or Green Park and then walk down to Buckingham Palace. The Tate Galleries are great, too. Very inspired. Madame Tussauds [Regent's Park] wax museum was always an interesting place to go. I went there when I was very young. They have a planetarium there, as well.

And there's the London Zoo [Regent's Park]. I actually studied animals at the London Zoo. It was part of a course. We had to go there every weekend, study the animals, come back, and mimic the animals' behaviours. I studied all these fantastic animals, like apes and lions, but I ended up being a lizard. The teacher felt that stillness was something that would be of great use to me later in my career. She said, "It's a lizard for you, young man!" I have to tell you, it was fantastic studying lizards. I learned stillness, composure. You don't have to be doing something to be doing something. Sometimes you can do too much.

High tea
Tea at Fortnum & Mason [St. James] is great. You get great fresh tea there. When I say fresh, what I mean is loose tea or tea bags. My cousin's got a big thing for the tea at Fornum & Mason, so we go and grab tea there and bring it back to L.A. They also have Marmite and bangers and mash and fish and chips. Fortnum & Mason is very English. Just the packaging of the teas of whatever you're buying and the shop itself is very old-school English.

Dinner
I do go home. I still have family there. But I don't go back as often as I'd like. When I'm in Canterbury, I try to go to Café des Amis, a Mexican restaurant. I guess I was sixteen when we started going there. It had just opened. The food is outstanding. The best Mexican food you'll eat. Honestly. I've travelled around Mexico, and I still find Café des Amis to be a pretty good match to anything I've had in Mexico. It's in an old building overlooking the river and the West Gate Towers, which are the gates to the city. It used to be a store where they sold odds and ends, brass objects and things. There's also Papa's Fish Bar in Canterbury. They have great white bread. I remember that loaf called Mother's Pride, with Marmite.

I had dinner recently with Ridley Scott in London at Cipriani [Mayfair], a great little restaurant. We were there for Ridley's birthday and the waiter came over and said, "Ah, we had your friend Johnny Depp here last night." It was one of those funny stories, ships passing in the night. I think he was there shooting Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Another place is the Wolseley [Mayfair]. It has really good food. More recently, when I've been popping back, I've been having nice meals at J. Sheekey, in the West End. Fantastic fish.

Theatre
I spent three years at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama [Square Mile]. That's where Ewan McGregor studies, and David Thewlis, who is in Kingdom of Heaven. And Joe Fiennes. You can see the third-year performances there. It's a great school. I had three fantastic years there. It's next door to the Barbican. The Royal Shakespeare Company had productions going on at the Barbican, and we would see productions there. But we had our own productions at school. That was where I learned it was something I really loved.

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Excerpted from Celebrated Weekends: The stars' guide to the most exciting destinations in the world by Mark Seal. Copyright 2007 by Mark Seal. Excerpted with permission from Rutledge Hill Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.