Widely regarded as one of show business’s nicest guys – and with a ripped physique that can put anyone to shame – Terry Crews is one of Hollywood’s unsung heroes, but in recent years he has been putting his talents to positive use off-screen as well.

There are few people in modern showbiz who can emulate the kind of effect Terry Crews has on a room. It’s not just the seemingly boundless smile and 6’ 3” ex-NFL-worthy frame that have made Crews a much-loved entertainment staple since his breakthrough in the early noughties. The Michigan-born star has also developed a reputation for being one of the industry’s most enthusiastically positive influences – a trait which was crucial to helping him win his first high-profile moments on the silver screen.

When visiting the set of the 2002 Denzel Washington-fronted Training Day, Crews was approached by director Antoine Fuqua and asked to do some background shots as ‘Unnamed Gang Member’.

‘I’ve always realised that you just have to go,’ ...

In time for this year’s Remembrance Day, Mark Stibbe interviewed ex-British Army helicopter pilot Karl Tearney about learning to manage post-traumatic  stress disorder  (PTSD) through  writing poetry.

How long did you serve in the army?

I had always wanted to be a pilot when I was little, but I had a very difficult childhood and I left school without qualifications. In 1983, I joined the Army Air Corps at sixteen. I had to spend eight years as a soldier before training to be a pilot. I passed the pilot’s course in early 1993 and was a helicopter pilot for 24 years. I was really pleased to be a soldier and if I had my time all over, I would do the same again. Who doesn’t want to do the job they enjoy?

Yet you suffer from PTSD. What caused that?

My trauma developed over time. It stemmed back to my experiences in Bosnia; what I saw there was appalling. What made it far worse was that I couldn’t shoot or intervene when I saw atrocities taking place. At least in N...

With a seven-week sabbatical to fill, Tony Collins wanted to do something special. But what? The answer turned out to be a very, very long walk.

I had just turned 64, and in those days, my employer offered a generous sabbatical to those who had served their years. I had been puzzled how to make use of this bounty. It was a once-off opportunity, not to be frittered. Then I

met an old friend. Douglas had always been a softly spoken, genial, self-effacing bloke, effective in a quiet way but easily overlooked. Now he was taking the lead, cracking jokes, brimming with enthusiasm, in a way I had not seen previously. The change was so arresting I asked him what had happened: where did he get the shot of happy juice?

‘I walked the Camino,’ he responded, as if that explained everything.

At that point I knew little about the Camino de Santiago. Further questioning revealed that it is the millennium-old pilgrim route between the centres of Europe and the city of Santiago, in the north...

In his next Great British Adventure, Pete Woodward races up the west coast of the UK in the legendary Three Peaks Yacht Race.

Adventure racing is experiencing a boom with mud races, ultra-running, triathlon and a whole host of multisport events being held in our national parks and beauty spots. Behind the noisy clamour announcing the many exciting newcomers is a less well known classic multiday challenge from 1977 that remains one of the best. The Three Peaks Yacht Race speeds through some of the most beautiful and challenging of British environments. This incredible race sees teams of up to five sailing from Barmouth, in mid-Wales, to Fort William, in Scotland, interspersed with land legs visiting the tops of the highest peaks in Wales, England and Scotland. The race is continuous and teams of two runners hop off the boat at the nearest coastal access points to the mountains, before running and cycling to the mountaintops and back. Billed as one of the oldest and most remarkable en...

His outspoken ruminations on the nature of religion have at times landed him in hot water – only making the fact that supposedly staunch atheist Stephen Fry was once aiming for a priesthood all the more intriguing.

When drafting a list of entertainers who might, in another life, have swapped their career in showbusiness for a more religious vocation, it would be fair to assume that Stephen Fry’s name would be a surprising inclusion. Indeed, the Hampstead-born, Cambridge-educated intellectual has often been open about his atheistic inclinations – even going so far as to have been awarded the Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism by the Harvard Secular Society in 2011.

And yet for all of Fry’s apparent misalignment with organised religion in particular, there’s something about his expansive intelligence, idiosyncratic voice, and refusal to shy away from the deepest of debate topics that lends itself to critical discourse on the subject of faith.

‘At ...

At times, Hollywood superstar Dennis Quaid was torn between his faith and hell-raiser reputation, but while his troubles appear behind him for good now, his belief never faltered.

It takes a certain type of faith to be prepared to showcase your beliefs to a global audience. Indeed, there are many high-profile individuals who elect to keep stoically private when it comes to the subject of religion. Dennis Quaid, however, has gone the distance of late, not only committing his staunch faith to record in interviews, but even going so far as to lend his talents and superstar status to a Christian film – still a Hollywood rarity – that combines his professional class and Hollywood platform with personal godliness. But surprising as it may seem that an established actor like Quaid would bare his beliefs on the big screen, there is one tangible reason why the star of Traffic, The Big Easy and Footloose, among others, was drawn to the Erwin Brothers-directed I Can Only Imagine.

‘I appreci...