The decorator to the stars didn't aspire to or study for the role he now performs. He went to Hollywood 23 years ago for the same reason millions of others do - in the hope of becoming a star. "I was going to follow my father's footsteps - he had been an actor and an opera singer - so I put myself through drama school, buying and selling antiques and objects on the side, for theatre stage sets. Then I thought, right, I'm going to go to Hollywood and become a movie star. So I moved to Hollywood … I didn't become a superstar. I sort of flailed around, trying to get bit parts here and there, and eventually I got cast in a movie - a very small part, but it was ever so meaningful at the time."

I proffer the old adage that there are no small parts, just small actors. "Well, I was a very small actor then, my dear," he says with a notable English accent he's not shaken off despite living in LA for more than two decades.

"I became friends with the producer and his girlfriend (I think she was, at the time) and they ended up coming to my little flat one night. They loved what I had done. I didn't have any money then, so when they asked me to do their house - of course, I said yes. It was kind of a Casablanca, Moroccan vibe."

It's a vibe that he continues to spread with his homes dotted with 18th century Tibetan monk sculptures, antique French apothecary jars, mother-of-pearl inlaid trays, garden sofas upholstered in Zanzibar from his fabric collection, glass lanterns from the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul and Tibetan tapestries woven in pure gold thread.

But can most residents in Hong Kong, with flats the size of Eva Mendes' closet, relate to this?

"I love small spaces - there's something cosy and wonderful about them. One should never be restricted by space; it's all about dreaming big. Just because you have a small apartment doesn't mean you have to live in a white box with a couple of chairs. It's about being inventive."

And invention means bringing elements of the outside inside. "Colour is a really important tool and can turn a small space from a white box into an amazing jewel. I always tell people to experiment. It changes a space. A great trick with a small space is rather than just painting the walls, paint the whole thing. If you put [the same] colour on the ceiling and the walls, you create this extraordinary cocoon effect. It makes everything feel bigger."

Bullard says his work both for television and for international clients often takes him overseas, where he’s had the “pleasure of traversing hidden alleyways in astonishing places” in search of antiques. 

"I've kind of got out of the tourist traps and discovered amazing new worlds. Little villages in Jaipur, off-the-beaten paths in Istanbul, deep in the arteries of Europe and Asia you find these little gems."

In Hong Kong, he found similar treasures in Hollywood Road.

"The antiques stores, those little streets with a fish market and then there was a trendy pop-up store, and then there was a deserted former restaurant I think where people were getting tattoos. It was mad but amazing. I mean, what a fabulous feel of life."

He was also struck by the city's mixture of very modern and ancient.

"Being in Hong Kong, I've seen everybody wants everything to be very new. There's no room for vintage here, it's all about brand new and sparkling. But the reality is a really good interior, or really good space, is something that's curated and makes a cultured blend of things. And I think more so than ever it's a blend of cultures that makes any space - a room, a house, a city, a country - interesting."