When Blunt Talk writer/director Jonathan Ames asked the thespian to come up with a name for his hellraising alter-ego, Stewart already had one picked out - he had been using it for years.

He tells WENN, "Jonathan sent me an email, which read: 'We've got to stop calling this person he, him; we've got to have a name. Do you have any ideas about names?'

"I said, 'There's one name I've used for decades, which is my pseudonym I use when I check into hotels - and that's Walter Blunt'. That's also the first named character that I ever played for the Royal Shakespeare Company back in 1966'. I always liked the name.

"I got an email back instantly saying, 'That's perfect, because the show will be called Blunt Talk'."

Sir Walter Blunt features in Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1.

Stewart's new cable show begins in America this weekend (22Aug15).