English actor Ben Whishaw says he feared coming out gay.

The 33-year-old Whishaw is best known for playing Q in the James Bond film Skyfall and Freddie in the BBC period drama The Hour.

Last year, he publicly announced that he had entered a civil partnership in Sydney, Australia with partner Mark Bradshaw, an Australian composer.

I had a lot of fear in doing it for a long time,” he told The Sunday Times. “And who can say why? I'm not sure I know.”

“Everyone was surprisingly lovely. I hadn't anticipated that they would be, but they were.”

“It takes courage [to come out] and people have to do it in their own time.”

“It's massively weighted with all sorts of stuff, whatever the wider world is saying,” Whishaw said. “It's an intimate and private and difficult conversation for most people.”

He added that he's not ready to think about having children “as my life is too peripatetic.”

(Related: Ben Whishaw to play Freddie Mercury in upcoming biopic.)