If strangers knocked on your door while you were holidaying in the middle of the woods and asked you to make a decision – save your family or save humanity – what would you do?
Ben Aldridge plays a father who must make that choice in M. Night Shyamalan's film Knock at the Cabin, based on the book The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay.
"I would like to think that I would choose to save humanity," Aldridge laughed, discussing the two films he features in currently playing to Australian audiences.
Of Shyamalan, famed for movies such as Signs and The Sixth Sense, Aldridge was already a fan.
"It felt to me like my most 'Hollywood' project I'd ever been on before in terms of who he is and the scale and the size of it," he said.
"It was very exciting. It was very daunting because I found the script really horrific to read. I found it very intimidating.
"M. Night is a really, really interesting man. He's very kind and very warm. But he is as mysterious as one of his films are, really. And I don't think that's intentional.
"He has planned every minutia of a moment and story boarded it, and so, as an actor, you're not discovering the film with him, you are becoming part of his vision."
By contrast, Spoiler Alert, based on Michael Ausiello's memoir Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, is less fraught — but don't call it a rom-com.
"[It's about] how sometimes it's hard to love someone over time and the challenges of life and the difficulty that you can experience in a long relationship," he said.
Aldridge plays gay characters in both films, a departure from earlier work.
"I had been out in my life since the age of, like, 26," he said.
"In my day-to-day life, in my personal life … I felt very easy and comfortable talking about that with people who knew me or people that I would meet.
"[But] I didn't feel comfortable about the kind of perception of me, I think, because of a bunch of roles I played on the BBC.
"They were kind of these romantic roles."
He said he realised people had a different on-screen perception of him from reality.
"I was just a bit, like, this doesn't feel right, it feels like people think I'm something I'm not," he said.
"And even though I believe in the kind of old school 'the less you know about an actor, the more you can believe them playing something' — there's real value in that.
"But when it comes to standing up for your community, or who you are, it felt like that's increasingly important for me just to identify as who I really am."
He said posting publicly about his sexuality on social media has "revolutionised" his life.
"I felt like I was breathing fresh air for the first time and I felt a real release. And I hadn't predicted that.
"And it's really changed the way I work because now I'm playing more queer parts. And acting hasn't become about escaping who I am, it's become about confronting who I am and exploring that."
But is he open to playing roles again similar to the one he took on in the 2016 comedy Fleabag?
He was simply known in the series as Arsehole Guy, and played the love interest of the main character Fleabag played by comic actress and writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
"Yeah, for sure," Aldridge said.
"When I read those scenes, I was like, yes, thank you, Phoebe, you've written something that is so much fun to play.
"I'd always played quite noble, upstanding people until that point — bring on all the arsehole guys".
Spoiler Alert and Knock at the Cabin are currently showing in cinemas across the country.
