I learned years ago to come to terms with having so much done for me by others," Reeve says, in a loud, resonant monotone that doesn't quite drown the hissing inhalation and exhalation of the ventilator. He's an imposing presence at 6ft 4in, and the wheelchair seat lifts him high off the ground. An air pipe is positioned in front of his face, and he can adjust the chair by blowing on it. His features are pinched, his eyes red-rimmed, but the handsomeness is still there, the good looks that, when he was younger, would have made any career but that of movie star seem profoundly misguided. I am four inches shorter, swallowed up by a low, deep armchair, with the result that Reeve peers down at me from a commanding height as he speaks. It isn't the way the able-bodied and the wheelchair-bound normally interact.