Matthew Macfadyen is an enormously gifted actor. Whether you first discovered him as Tom Quinn in Spooks, or as Mr Darcy in Pride & Prejudice, his career has been constant and consistent: he’s a working actor in every sense of the word.

In recent years he’s enjoyed a surge in recognition as Succession’s Machiavellian Tom Wambsgans, the cringing sycophant who grasped his way to total power. His role was a revelation to global audiences, who didn’t realise he was in fact an English actor. They’ll be further confused when they see him playing another American, the comically hapless Les Littlejohn, in Sky’s upcoming sci-fi comedy The Miniature Wife. And even more so when they see him as George Smiley in a new BBC adaptation of John le Carré’s novels called Legacy of Spies. It was a tremendous honour to interview Macfadyen for this issue, even though I’m not sure the pleasure was all his. Macfadyen rarely undertakes press interviews, and likes to avoid journalists. I am thankful therefore that he decided to hang out with us. And do a shoot. On his day off. 

This issue precedes a period of Easter celebrations, and this week we travel to Andalucia to join Igor Ramírez García-Peralta as he takes part in a Catholic procession during Semana Santa, practised for centuries in Spain and Latin America. Igor was invited to join the Hermandad de las Tres Caídas as a costalero, one of the men tasked with bearing the heavy wooden platforms, or pasos, that are paraded through the streets of Arcos de la Frontera, his home village in Cádiz. At first, he viewed it as an athletic feat as much as a spiritual one, but he soon discovered that the pilgrimage offered him a rare opportunity to reconnect with his community, his culture and his faith.

Faith of a different type features in our 20-page property special, in which we uncover the modular housing project imagined by Charles and Ray Eames. The designers built their famous Eames house in California’s Pacific Palisades in 1949. But it was always intended to be an incubator for further dwellings – part of an affordable housing vision that has now come to fruition after many decades of work. The results are being unveiled in Tarragona, near Barcelona, in a partnership between the Eames Office and outdoor-furniture maker Kettal. We went to visit the structures in the factory; the inaugural configurations will go public at the Triennale Milano Museum on 21 April. Could they be the answer to a global housing crisis? They’re certainly the chicest-looking prefabs I’ve ever seen. 

The property special also introduces the new breed of real-estate influencer – a tribe of TikTok and social-media-savvy vendors turning 30-second “house tours” into multimillion-dollar sales. Meet Ryan Serhant, the 41-year-old with 3.1 million followers, whose eponymous company is now the most-followed real-estate business in the world. Or Becky Fatemi who, thanks to her “walk-through socials”, has racked up more than £10.25bn in sales.

Lastly, are you shrinking? As Alex Bilmes discovers in this week’s The Longevity Project column, height can be a fickle thing. Having undergone a number of health check-ups in the past year, Alex was delighted to have gained an inch – hitting 6ft for the first time – before a survey at another clinic snatched the inch away. Why are we so invested in feet and inches? And why did those extra centimetres make him feel so good? As someone who is a determined five-foot-nine-and-three-quarter inches, I well understand the height obsession. I hope he can find some consolation in the fact that shorter people often have lower mortality rates.

‌

‌

THREE MORE STORIES TO READ THIS WEEK

The 12th Earl of Shaftesbury talks taste Nicholas Ashley-Cooper loves saunas, ’90s techno and his Quercus dentata (aka Japanese emperor oak) My search for the Renoir sisters How