The actor Daniel Caltagirone, 36, has appeared in numerous television and film productions, including Friends, A Touch of Frost, The Beach, The Pianist and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. He can be seen in Lynda La Plante’s new police procedural, Above Suspicion, at 9pm tonight and tomorrow on ITV1, and in The Fixer later in the year. Single, he lives in north London

I am an actor because of travelling. If I hadn’t gone backpacking, I would probably have joined the army, because my school had a military academy attached to it with a cadet force. But after my A-levels, I took off to Italy, travelling by train and earning my keep by waiting tables.

It was during that trip that I really reconnected with my Italian roots and realised just how much of my make-up is influenced by that heritage. I had also grown my hair long and had a beard. When I came back, my friends and I had a celebratory drink in a bar in Covent Garden, and this guy came up to me and said I had the look he had been searching for — I’m looking for someone to play the devil in this play, he said. And I got hooked and went to drama school.

I have done an amazing amount of travelling because of work. I made a movie called The Fall, with the director Tarsem Singh, filming in 27 countries, although it was India that had the most impact on me. I found it invigorating, especially the people. From both ends of the social spectrum, there is something sharp and alive and connected to the earth about them, something we have lost.

Not all my travel is for work. I long had an ambition to walk the trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. So, a few years ago, a friend and I decided we would do it. We had heard, though, that the main route had become a bit of an overcrowded tourist trail, so I asked an agent if there was a company that would take us up a less well-travelled route. They came back and said yes, but it’s pretty tough. But we’d been going to the gym and thought we were superfit athletes. Bring it on, we said.

So, we got there and met this shabby-looking bunch who were to be our guides and porters. We had the most high-tech sleeping bags and the finest hiking boots; they had sandals and blankets. We set off, on a route normally taken only by archeologists and explorers and the madmen of the British army. And after half a day, I looked at my mate and I could see he was thinking the same thing: we’re dead.

That night, in our extreme-cold-weather sleeping bags, we just shivered. Couldn’t sleep. And we both confessed we weren’t sure whether we could manage the next day. The head guide heard us and came into the tent, insisting we wrap ourselves in one of his alpaca blankets. We were asleep within 20 minutes. And you realise these guys have been running up these mountains since way before the Spanish came, and well before our gear manufacturers. So, as we went along, we started ditching our expensive London stuff and acted like them, to the point where we chewed their coca leaves and prayed to their gods and, suddenly, on day three, I had this surge of energy. I felt like a caged animal that had been set free. We sprinted the last stage.

I remember climbing up the final set of steps, from where, at the top, you get the first magical glimpse of the ruins, and there were two Americans, not looking at this wonderful sight, but exchanging business cards and talking about the photocopying business in Wisconsin. I wanted to slap them, especially when I learnt they came by bus. I’m afraid there was a real smugness about having done it the hard way.

I might be biased, but my default destination is Italy. As a country it’s not without its problems, especially politically, but the whole package is just so wonderful. You want art? Then go to Florence. History? There’s Rome. Skiing? Head to the Dolomites. Beach, food, style, clothes: it’s all there.

I go to Tuscany every summer and just feel right at home there. Mind you, I do speak fluent Italian, because my parents spoke it at home when I was a kid. They were from Sicily, which I haven’t been back to since I was 15. I’m scared that it won’t be as perfect as I remember it as a teenager, but I have to go and find out. That’s my new-year resolution: to go back to Sicily.

Daniel Caltagirone talked to Rob Ryan

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