Exclusive: Dominic West on domestic life in Bath with 3 'champion sleeper' teenagers and his prized pigs

When I moved to Bath in the last seven years, we kept these pigs with all my kids. It was all lovely until it came to slaughter time and then my kids wouldn't eat any of the pork chops or the sausages. So, I took them to Julian House, which I'd never seen before, and got chatting to some people.

Then I spent a day with them going around the shelter in Manvers Street and also with the women's shelter to hear about what they did. They asked me if I could do anything for publicity and be an ambassador for them, and I was very glad to do it.

I've just been watching The Wire again with my son. He was watching Suits one day, and I said, 'Why the hell are you watching Suits for? You've got to watch The Wire'.

I hadn't seen it for 20 years and I watched it with him, and I was delighted that it still holds up after 20 years. It was great watching it again and remembering some good times I had for five years in Baltimore.

I suppose that's the part that was my break and the one I feel fondest about. McNulty and The Wire would be my favourite.

I did a play with Sienna about 12 years ago called As You Like It in London, and I'm very fond of her. I think she's a wonderful person and a great actress, so I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, we're getting a divorce so we're very rarely in any scenes [together].

But we were yesterday – we sat in the back of a Mercedes for the whole day and chatted and it was a deeply enjoyable afternoon. It's great to be back with her. There's lots going on in her life, so we had a great chat.

I'm supposed to be playing Charles II, which I was really looking forward to – Romola (Garai), who's an old friend of mine from The Hour, has written and is going to direct it, so she asked me to be Charles II, which I thought would be quite interesting after playing Charles III.

But that hasn’t happened yet, so I'm looking forward to that. Hopefully, it's going to go ahead.

I'm spending Christmas in Ireland at my wife's house in County Limerick with all the kids and all my sisters-in-law and their families come down, and I'll be seeing my sisters too. They come down just after Christmas, and my cousins, and we all have a big knees up for about a week in Glynn.

The best bit is Stephen's day (Boxing Day) where they have a thing called the Wren boys, who go around all the pubs in the local area and they dress up and sing and dance, and the kids do these amazing Irish dances. That's always a great night in the pub. I look forward to Stephen's Day every year and seeing all the family.

So we'll be there with a big tree, lots of presents and me trying to keep up with it all.

Where do I call home? Home is where my kids and my pigs are. 

My kids we raised in the house near Bath, so I suppose that's where my home is now and that's also where I keep my two sows, who are Oxford Sandy and Black [pigs] and they're called Ivanka and Melania.

I've got three teenagers and the main thing I've noticed is the sleep – they come home to sleep basically, so I rarely see them. They're always in bed.

My daughter who's 19 now, so she's almost not a teenager, but she's a champion sleeper. She can do 16 hours at a stretch. I think the main thing is to let teenagers sleep.

I'd like to do another play; I did a play last year. I did View from the Bridge and played Eddie Carbone - I'd love to do something like that again.

The thing about playing a part like that is, it's so full of meat and nourishment that it's hard to do anything less, so I think I'd be looking at a big Shakespeare if possible.

Hopefully that might come about in the next year or two, but lots of things are happening and life's good.