Lucian Freud almost had a second career in the cinema. He acted as an extra in a couple of films during the early 1940s; the only one in which he made the final cut was a farce starring the ukulele-playing comedian George Formby in which his 19-year-old face can be seen peering out of the background in one scene. Years later, Lucian claimed, John Huston asked him if he’d like to play the part of his grandfather Sigmund in a biographical screen drama from 1962 entitled Freud: The Secret Passion (which had, at one point, a script by Jean-Paul Sartre).

Eventually Montgomery Clift was cast instead, which was just as well because Freud was definitely an observer rather than a performer. This is one of the complications involved in making the movie Moss & Freud, in which the great painter is played by Derek Jacobi, and his model Kate Moss by Ellie Bamber.

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This is a subject close to my own life. I remember that picture ‘Naked Portrait 2002’ being painted. It had to be finished quite rapidly, by Lucian’s standards, since the model was pregnant at the time, which set a natural deadline. A year later, I sat for a couple of portraits myself, although admittedly I was wearing a tweed jacket, scarf and cords, rather than nothing at all. But in many ways, my experience as a sitter would have been close to hers.

 When I went to chat with Sir Derek one sunny morning, he explained the problems involved in playing the part of an artist – rather than, to name a few of his many celebrated roles, the Emperor Claudius, the monk-detective Cadfael or King Edward VIII. In some respects, the task of an actor is similar to that of a painter of portraits – and Lucian thought everything he depicted was a portrait, even if the subject was a floorboard. Actors also present a kind of portrait – created with their faces, bodies and voices. Of course Jacobi has done so, time and again, superlatively well. But he finds the portrayal of painters especially tricky. ‘To be able to........

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