These are snippets from various recent UK magazine articles and interviews. If you have any articles or interviews not included here, please get in touch! Members of our Greeny club, can read the full text of these articles on the Greeny Interviews page

well Paul, Joe's started to really lose the plot recently... what's going on?

Basically, for the past few months everyone's been wondering what the hell is wrong with Joe but now he really starts to lose it, and it's triggered off by the anniversary of his sister's birthday. He's been getting more and more disturbed, but his sister's birthday really sets it off. Then he starts to hear voices in his head and that's it.

he's pretty confused, to say the least...

I mean, he's had 16 years of sanity so he tries to fight it at first, but then the voices get stronger and he starts to have hallucinations as well. His whole view of life isn't normal anymore - or whatever you could call normal, anyway! - and eventually it gets to the point where they're so strong he can't distinguish between what's real and what's not.

no-one can help him, either...

Well, because everyone's trying to get through to him but just can't understand what he's going through, Joe starts to think that everyone else is crazy. Before, he knew something was wrong, but now he's just in his own little world and everybody else is shut out.

it's taken Joe a while to get this bad...

Yeah. The EastEnders scriptwriters didn't want to make his illness unrealistic, so they've made it a gradual thing because that's what actually happens. I think people would've preferred it to happen all at once, but they tried to make it as real as possible.

do you think Joe will get better?

There is a way back for him, but it's a vicious circle 'cause he's been diagnosed as having anything apart from depression, and that's pretty common amongst teenagers. The thing is, there are so many similarities between normal adolescent problems and full-on depression, that it takes a while before people realise Joe's not just our average moody teenager.

how have people in the Square reacted to Joe's illness?

Well, he's not really brought it into other people's lives apart from the people he was close to before, so it doesn't have too much of an affect on people in the Square. The problem is, if you saw someone walking down the street talking to himself, you wouldn't think, "Oh, I feel so sorry for him." You'd just think, "Look at him, he's crazy!"

have you been pleased with your acting in this storyline?

Well, I'm trying my best! Hopefully it's alright - I think I'm doing alright, anyway. It was difficult at first when his illness started to get worse, but then I got to know the character so much, and I also did quite a lot of research, so after a while it did get easier. I mean, I'm no Robert DeNiro, but I did find it a lot easier to stay in character for long periods of time - because I'm a poor actor, really!

did you find yourself acting like Joe when you went home?!

It's funny, but I did find myself speaking and acting like Joe, which is something I hope to get out of! It's just because the part's so intense - I think I'd give a crap performance if I just tried to jump into the character. I can't do that - I'm still young, and I'm still learning.

was it difficult getting into such an intense part?

I can't just jump in and out of character, so I found it easier to jump into his head and stay there. I didn't know how it was going to affect me, but now as soon as I get into costume I'm in character. I've given Joe a few physical characteristics as well, just to make it easier.

did you know Joe would end up like this when you started?

When I first joined EastEnders knew Joe was going to end up with a mental illness, but I didn't know quite how intense it was going to be. You always dream of parts like this, but you never know what's really involved. You night think, "Oh, I'll go there and give the best performance of my life," but you still don't know.

so what would you like to see happen to Joe in the future?

Eventually I'd like Joe to go back to normal. When people come out of their depression and escape this world they've been stuck in, they've changed totally as a person anyway. I mean, Joe has gone from this vulnerable little 16-year-old to this crazy psychopath so why shouldn't he change again!

do people in the street look it you differently since Joe went a little, erm, loopy?

Yeah, people's reactions to me have changed a lot since I've been in EastEnders. At first girls would come ip to me and go, "It's Paul Nicholls." then it was, "Oh, there's David Wicks' son," but now it's just, "There's mad Joe!" I'm telling ya, that's all I get- "There's mad Joe!" I don't mind, though - if people are taking the piss then I just scare them by going into my Joe character... I just start talking to myself, then I'll run up to them and go, "EEAAUURGH!"

are you planning to stay in EastEnders for a while?

I'd like to stay in EastEnders for a while just to see how the part grows, but then again, I don't just want to be known as "mad Joe"! It's funny because I don't do that many appearances on TV shows, but whenever I do I always try to be over-the-top happy, just because it's a total contrast to Joe. I mean, I get letters saying, "Why don't you cheer up, you're so miserable?!"

so what would you do if you were to leave?

I really want to do some theatre next. When I came into EastEnders I thought, "Nah, I don't need to do theatre for a while," but you learn a lot when you're here. I've met actors who've been in the business for a lot longer than I have and they've shown me that no matter how much you think you know, you never know enough. I just wanna learn, really.

but you do panto every year - isn't that theatre?!

Well yeah, I have done panto before, but that doesn't really count, does it?! It's just a laugh and you do make good money out of them - well, I'm not spending Christmas Day by myself for nothing, you know! I'm doing panto in Chatham and I'm working on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, so there's no way I'll be able to get back to Bolton!

how long have you been on Easties now?

I've been on the show for ten months how... I remember my first day - I wasn't nervous, I was scared stupid! I was rehearsing with Pam St. Clement, who plays Pat, and Michael French, who played my dad, and I walked in and I was so nervous. I thought, "Oh man, this is too surreal!" I know it's really sad, but I still get excited when I see famous people! I'm like, "Isn't that her off that programme?!" It was such a relief when they were really nice, though. They didn't have any illusions about themselves - no-one on the show does. They know they're just actors.

do you watch Coronation Street or Brookside, to see what your rivals are up to?

Nah, I've not watched TV for ages - I don't even watch EastEnders! Actually, I watched an episode last night and it was brilliant!

did you enjoy your trip to Blackpool?

The Blackpool storylines were good, but I didn't really have that much to do! All I had to do was stand in front of some mirrors and get scared of arcade games! It was cool though, because I was only half-an-hour from home, so at the end of every day I could just jump in my car and drive back home.

what's been your most embarrassing moment on set?

The worst time was one time when I couldn't remember my lines. Normally I can look at a script, even if it's five pages long, and within ten minutes I know it. Well, this time I just could not learn it. So I spent two hours on it and I thought, "God, it must have gone in by now, I'll know it in the morning," so I left it. The next morning I couldn't remember the first line and after that I was lost! We had to abandon the scenes and the director said "Paul, go and learn your lines, do your job!" I got it in the end, but it was pretty embarrassing!

so finally, if you had your way, how would Joe turn out?

Ideally, I'd like to see him get better, then totally change his personality. I wanna play someone nasty! I don't wanna play someone vulnerable so that people go, "Aaw!" I wanna play someone really nasty, that people hate!

As Billy Liar, ex-Eastenders heart-throb Paul Nicholls convinces Simon Fanshawe that he's not just a pretty face.

Sex symbols are usually a pain to talk to. They are too pretty by half, and not clever enough by a factor of several hundred. Swathed in adulation, they still try to clothe themselves in modesty, but it's an ill-fitting garment in the face of poster, picture, and fan club evidence that they are simply the most desirable, hormone inducing physical presence to their adoring - usually teenage - public.

It's an unkind cross to bear especially when you're only 16. But Paul Nicholls, who at this age started playing the troubled schizophrenic Joe Wicks in Eastenders, appears to have weathered the experience reasonably well. Now 19, sitting in the rehearsal rooms of the Kings Head pub theatre in London, where he is preparing for the lead in Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall's Billy Liar - the role that helped launch Albert Finney on stage and Tom Courtenay in the film version in the 1960s. Inevitably, one wants to describe him as a puppy. But a puppy with stubble, fetchingly hairy arms and very, very long eyelashes. In fact it must be said, a very, very sexy puppy.

"Being good-looking doesn't mean anything to me personally," he says when I bring up the beauty question without trying to look jealous or bitter. "But in this business," he says, using the appropriately grown-up term, "with the whole pop thing, any young lad on television gets the attention and people find ways of marketing that.".

He continues, getting serious: "Anyway, when someone offers you that kind of money for posters or whatever, you know that acting is the most important thing, but they offer you all that money and you just can't say no." The killer penny drops. Nicholls wants to be an actor. He never really wanted to be a sex symbol. He says as wistfully as he can, in his manic Bolton accented way: "I think I've slightly damaged myself because once you've done things like that, it's hard to get out of that mode."

The irony of it is that when he was 14 or 15, he says he was "the most arrogant cocky little bastard you could ever meet. I went into Eastenders with an amazing amount of confidence - and came out with hardly any at all". What rebuilt his confidence was working again. He joined the cast of BBC 1's Saturday night police drama series, City Central. "Everybody had this vision of me being there because I was this pin-up boy from Eastenders, but it just made me feel good that these amazing actors were saying to me that I was OK after scenes."

It's not false modesty that leads him to say this, but a certain knowingness about himself. In amongst the Tiggerish charm, there is a strange directness about Nicholls and how he describes who he is. "I did a play at Primary school once. The applause was, and still is, the best feeling I've ever had." I assume he's heading off on a why-I-started-acting story, but it suddenly veers off in an odd direction: "I don't really like life." Sorry? He laughs. "If you can be somebody else, then why not be somebody else?" Does it frighten you? "No I just find it quite boring. All these amazing stories you read, and you think, I could be that person for just a month." He is a compulsive actor.

"When I was out of work,.. well, I wasn't out of work... Yes, I was out of work for a month, and I used to get withdrawal symptoms. I was just so energetic. So I used to spend hours talking to myself in the mirror in all these different voices." He looks at me, roars with laughter. "Your going to think I'm insane." No. Just worryingly enthusiastic. What must he be like to live with? And on the subject, is he living with anyone right now? Do they have kids? "No. God, no. No." He reassures himself, and mentally you can see another land speed record being set by a 19-year-old asked by his girlfriend to settle down. "I would like kids. I always think about it. But I also think: Paul this is another human being, this is not something you play at and then leave when you get bored."

Billy Liar plays out his fantasies not for months, but for hours even minutes. And, unlike Nicholls, as he points out, "Billy's no good at lying. I can lie all the time and do it very well, but he can't and it makes him look a fool". And Billy never discovers the way out. He's caught in a trap of curtailed expectations from which no fantasy and no spirit, not even Julie Christie in the movie, can rescue him. Nicholls on the other hand, freed himself from his own East End trap after a year or so. No more posters, no novelty singles, and now an actor's life for him. "I left Eastenders because I want to be other people, explore other people's lives, live as other people." Having said this, he chats on about Bolton, his friends, a new girlfriend, his Mum the child acting agent, and his dad the roofer. Then, suddenly, "What's the time? Oh f***. I've got a voice class. Bye." And he runs off. Immediately, without ceremony. Like you do when you are 19.

Despite being one of the biggest sex symbols ever to come out of a soap, former Eastenders heart-throb Paul, 19, says he has resorted to roaming the streets in America looking for Miss Right.

Last year he had a passionate romance with Rebecca Callard, daughter of former Coronation Street star Bev. But since that ended he has been on the lookout for the right girl and America seemed to him as good a place as any to start the search.

City Central star Paul, whose character dies when the hit cop series returns this week, says: "I went to New York because I don't seem to be able to meet the right girl in Britain. I haven't got a girlfriend at the moment and I do want one.

"It sounds really romantic to meet someone from another land or someone completely different, someone who doesn't know who I am.

"I don't want to be involved with a girl who's in the business - it's a terrible business. And I don't want to just mess around. I want to find the right person for me."

... part of his decision to leave Eastenders was a desire to run away from all the attention, which was overwhelming for a 17-year-old.

He explains: "Eastenders made me paranoid. I didn't think it had messed my head up at the time. It was only after I'd left that I realised the effect it'd had on my life.

"Being in Eastenders you get an immense sense of paranoia about everything. Before I went on screen for the first time, the rest of the cast said to me, 'Now you can say goodbye to your life.' But I can't live like that anymore. If I want to go out and go a bit crazy, I will."

Part of the change has been moving back to his Dad's house in Bolton and spending more time with his old mates.

He first returned there when he was filming City Central last year. And he has decided to stay, even though he is bowing out of the series after just one episode of the second.

His time as City Central's boyish bobby Terry Sydenham comes to an abrupt end this week. Terry dies in a pool of blood after answering a call and being shot at point-blank range.

The reason for his exit is that Paul is now reluctant to take on any role which lasts more than two months.

However, after a period of relative inactivity he is back in the spotlight in a big way.

On screen ... later this year in a major BBC romantic drama called The Passion, he knows the intense flood of attention is about to start all over again.

In The Passion, Paul plays Daniel, the star of a medieval passion play staged in a Devon village.

He says: "Daniel is very comfortable with himself. He is very content with life and has found inner peace - and yes, I am a bit jealous of him."

It was the first time Paul had done nude love scenes and he admits he was terrified.

But he says: "I had to get on and do it and look natural because Daniel is not self-conscious about anything, including his body. And I knew the scenes were essential to the story."

Paul genuinely feels he is caught between his desire to be a successful actor and the fear of falling into the Eastenders trap of having no life of his own. Although he seems to have achieved a new confidence about life, he is still highly self-critical about his work.

So much so that he even believes his acclaimed stage performance in Billy Liar last year was "c**p".

Paul Nicholls stars in BBC drama, The Passion, this month, but now he's out of work - what's more, he hasn't got a girlfriend, either! How on earth did that happen matey?

Paul, your new prog is very, very sexy - but what's your love life like at the mo?

"Actually, there's nothing going on! No, I haven't got a girlfriend at all at the moment. It'd be really nice to be in a relationship, though - I'm definitely looking for one!"

So if we wanted to pay you a quick visit on the set, where would we have to go?

"Erm... I'm actually unemployed at the moment - I've been out of work for four weeks! I want to wait for the right roles, and get parts for myself, not just because I'm a teen idol. I don't want to build a career, as such - I just want to keep getting better at what I do, y'know?"

Paul Nicholls stole a nation's heart as EastEnder Joe, the doe-eyed schizo, before buttoning up as a boy in blue. Now he's got his eye on the Messiah.

He's changed. He's changed considerably. It's just under a year since I last met Paul Nicholls and the boy I knew then - who chain smoked Silk Cut (mine mostly) and seemed to be fraught with a lack of confidence in his acting abilities, is barely recognisable.

Back then Paul had just quit Eastenders and was shooting his first series of Beeb1's cop show City Central. For some reason (fate has an odd way about it) we were thrown together twice in four weeks (two separate magazines). I'd been impressed by the fact that, during our first meeting in a building site (a photo opportunity) he'd tried to cadge work for his dad, a roofer, on the premise that the site was "a bit big isn't it? He'd be set up with that! Great job!". At the time Paul had just moved back in with him in Manchester and was hating the discipline ("It's crap") and loving the fact that he could take his old man to the pub. And I left feeling he was loveable rather than fanciable, and sweet rather than sexy.

Today, as I walk into the studio. Nicholls stuns me with his confidence, launching himself at me with arms outstretched for a hug. For five minutes he proceeds to dance me around the floor, spewing out a series of rapid-fire questions: How am I? Where am I living? What've I been up to? How come he hasn't seen me? And so on. Then the kick boxing starts. Left leg, right leg, left leg again.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the New Paul Nicholls. Confident, light hearted, bit of a laugh ... what a difference a year makes.

When he eventually stops twirling me around and nicks a fag (nothing new there then) I get to admire him and note 1) that he s lost weight, one, maybe two stones, and 2) he's looking older, wiser, not to say browner than I remember. The weight loss, he says is a result of giving up drink (just for the hell of it), the tan is from a recent holiday in Jamaica with his dad and three schoolmates (where, he reckons. he stayed up late and "slept with prostitutes". Blatantly not true Get that. Tabloids? His dad was there. It's a joke). And the spurt of confidence? God knows where that's come from though I'm sure we'll find out.

So, I begin, what changed? How did the nervous, unconfident Paul of old turn into this swan-thing? Has he noticed the difference?

"Yeah, I suppose," he states slowly. "Things have changed. To start with, being out of the public eye has made me much more comfortable anyway, much more relaxed. I've relaxed a lot. I think it's because now I'm not always paranoid that the press are around the corner, y'know - with leaving EastEnders and stuff. I dunno. I mean, people change anyway don't they? It's life isn't it really? But I think just being at ease with yourself and at ease with others. Taking it easy that's what life's about. And that's what I've been doing."

Perhaps one factor adding to Paul's new found confidence is the amount of acting work he's had since he quit EastEnders last year. His first vehicle, the BBC police show City Central, is now back for a second series, but it is by no means his only job. His resumé grows daily: a stint doing Billy Liar at the Lyric (PNO Note: This is wrong, it was actually at the Kings Head, Islington), a short film with Patsy Palmer for Channel Four, a new BBC play called The Passion and two (count 'em) feature-length films. He didn't know what he expected when he got his P45 from Albert Square but this wasn't it.

"Definitely not," he states, repeating it for emphasis. "I mean, I'm out of work now which I'm not really worried about (well, I am a bit!) but I didn't stop working last year. City Central ... I'm pleased with that. Great cast, nice people to work with."

It's also the series he hoped would remove him from his sex-symbol status (is he mad?) and would launch him just as a bloke who acts for a living but as filming began last year the fans were still hanging around the Manchester sets.

His films seem to be his proudest moments. The Trench, which he's publicising today, is the story of a young innocent lad, stuck in a trench (oddly) during the First World War, and is set to show what Nicholls really can achieve. The other biggy - a film called A Clandestine Marriage is a restoration film, alongside Nigel Hawthorne. Joan Collins and Timothy Spall, which debuts at Cannes in May..

"Doing that film was wicked," Paul laughs. "I was riding horses, wearing big wigs - old style! But the best part of it is when you get to do things like that, working with Nigel Hawthorne, when you're in it, you're so amazed you're not really worried about your own acting..."

"I didn't enjoy Billy Liar," he states, frankly. "I didn't have a good experience on it. I didn't feel that I was any good. Why? I was just insecure, really. Insecure with my performance."

"I can't look at it as a bad thing, though. I've just got to look at my mistakes and never make them again. I mean I'd love to do more stage stuff, if I can get some more. Definitely."

In The Passion, Nicholls plays Daniel, an actor whose travelling role involves playing Jesus Christ.

"Playing Jesus was never really an issue to me," he starts. "Daniel, the character, was"

I did notice though (I say, feeling a bit invasive, and trying to lighten things up) that in the love scenes he kept his jumper on.

"You've not seen it all then, Vix," he laughs. "They didn't make love then, they just kissed and cuddled but..."

He's happy, sorted, and even the fact that he hasn't "really got a love life" doesn't bother him. Is it nice to be single?

Women never approach him to ask him out. (Yeah right "No! Never!") And blokes? "They do sometimes." They're a bit more forward, it seems.

One more thing, Paul. Have people stopped calling you Joooe, yet?

"Nah," he smiles. "I don't think that'll ever go away."

He made his name wearing a dodgy green jumper and walked out of one of the best jobs in TV. Just what is Paul Nicholls like?

Paul's first appearance was at the tender age of 10 as a wise man in the school nativity play.

"When I went on stage it was such a buzz," he says. "Everyone in the school came up to me afterwards. It was the best feeling I'd ever had." From that moment on, he was hooked.

After attending an actors' workshop in his home town of Bolton, Paul got his first big break at 13, playing the lead in the CBBC series Earthfast.

Paul was soon snapped up for a leading role in CBBC's The Biz, playing Tim, a down-to-earth stage school lad who made it big.

"At first I didn't enjoy TV work," he admits. "You do one scene and they say 'Do it again! Do it again!' It takes a lot of energy. It's hard to believe in what you're doing when there's a camera in front of your face and all these guys walking around."

When Paul was about 16, he caught the eye of the casting team at EastEnders.

He had an audition for the show one Monday and by the following Wednesday morning, he was rehearsing, his first scenes as Joe Wicks, the schizophrenic teenager with a penchant for green jumpers and tin foil. Paul was a star.

It wasn't an easy role, though. Playing a character going through a mental breakdown was tough and Paul took it to heart.

Paul also had to deal with every one judging his performance.

"So many people were telling me different things about my performance, either that I was really good, or that I was absolutely terrible. My self-confidence totally went. With hindsight, I just wasn't ready for the role."

He wasn't ready for all the tabloid attention he was getting either. Hardly a day went by without Paul's face being splashed over the gossip columns.

After only 19 months on the show. Paul decided to quit EastEnders (and his £80.000 a year salary) saying simply that, "The part isn't doing anything for me anymore."

"EastEnders made me feel as if I was in a cage," he explains. "So, for a few months after I left I was drunk, drunk, drunk."

Soon, though, Paul came to his senses and started to get on with his life. He appeared in the panto, Aladdin, in Halifax, then set about finding a new job.

It wasn't a promising start. Most of the scripts he was sent were rubbish.

"They all seemed to be about a handsome young lad, who just happens to take off his shirt," he complained at the time. But then Paul landed his first adult TV role as PC Terry Sydenham in City Central. He also appeared on stage in a West End production of Billy Liar.

But will he be tempted by the razzle dazzle of LA? It seems unlikely considering what happened when he recently met the cast of Friends. "I was so excited, I walked over to introduce myself, but just spluttered, 'Aaaaah!' I couldn't speak. I felt such an idiot!"