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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
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As Paul Nicholls finally leaves EastEnders behind with sexy saga The Passion, Sarah Bailey asks him what his mum will think.
Your character Daniel enjoys a passionate affair with a married Gina McKee. How was it doing a love scene with an older woman?Back to the top"Fantastic! No, I'm only joking. It was the first time I'd ever done anything like that and the way it's done is not that explicit or raw. It's more about the feeling than being physical. Of course I was fucking nervous, I would have been nervous with anyone."
Have your parents seen The Passion?
"My mum's seen it. She loves it. [Laughs] She thinks I'm brilliant in it, but she's biased."
Will you watch it with your mates?
"Fuck no. I can't ever watch myself in front of anyone else."
You're shooting your first feature The Clandestine Marriage after The Passion. More sauce? (PNO Note, TCM was due out first but finance problems meant that it's release was delayed and The Trench came out several months before TCM)
"It's a restoration comedy, a farce. My character's called Lovewell but it's not really that kind of thing. I went home every night with a big smile on my face. I was like. 'This is my first film. My God. I shouldn't be doing this, I should be doing a milk round in Bolton'."
Or hanging around Albert Square. Was it a definite career move to get out of populist telly?
"Not at all. My only conscious decision was to stop being in kids' magazine, because that can actually stop you getting work. EastEnders likes you to do press and I never wanted to get myself a bad name so I was always, 'Yeah, I'll do it'. When I found out that casting directors looked down on that, I thought, 'My God what have I done?'"
As EastEnders's troubled schizophrenic Joe Wicks, Paul Nicholls became a soap star, a sex symbol (Inside Soap magazine voted him the sexiest man in soap) and a regular item in the gossip columns - all while still a teenager. But the one adjective that would best describe the roofer's son from Bolton during his 18 months on Albert Square was probably 'reluctant'.
To the serious and ambitious Nicholls, being a teen pin-up was always something of an embarrassment, and soap celebrity a transient experience rather than a life sentence. Now 20, with his EastEnders days behind him and his first two movies, The Trench and The Clandestine Marriage, under his belt, he's looking to be accepted as the only thing that really interests him - an actor.Back to the topSo, ask if EastEnders helped his move into films and Nicholls is on to you like a shot. "No. That's why I was so happy to get offered those films," he insists. "I've got a bit of a name on TV and that maybe helped me get jobs in the past. But I haven't made a name for myself in film. So for me it was: 'Right, I know that 1,000 people auditioned for this job, but I've got this off my own back, based on what I can actually do, not because of EastEnders or appearing in magazines and stuff like that.' That made me feel good again. It's nice, it makes you stronger, more confident."
He may display the mix of engaging modesty, even shyness, and undisputed good looks that once led an EastEnders producer to call him 'self-effacing and exceedingly beautiful', but there's something else to Nicholls. A self-awareness - of what he wants and who he wants to be - which is disarmingly acute for his age. He also has a very well-tuned bullshit detector.
"If you want a massive, massive profile, if you want to be recognised wherever you go, then you want to be in a soap," he says. " But there's a difference between having a big profile and having a big career, you know? A high profile doesn't mean that you're a massive success, in any way. It just means that as soon as you leave, you won't have such a big profile."
His post-EastEnders TV work on the BBC Saturday-night police drama City Central, and in particular in The Passion (as an actor playing Christ in a village passion play, falling in love with a married woman played by Gina McKee) suggested his greater range. Now it is further demonstrated by his two big-screen roles. The two movies couldn't be more different. The Clandestine Marriage (due for release at the end of the year) is a ribald Restoration comedy with an all-star cast led by Nigel Hawthorne and Joan Collins. Nicholls's character is appropriately named Lovewell. The Trench is a bleak war film following a squad of young soldiers, played by a largely unknown cast, through the 48 hours before the ill-fated Battle Of The Somme.
"Whatever part you're playing, you do take it home with you at the end of the day, whether you're conscious of it or not," says Nicholls. "So when I was doing Clandestine, which was light-hearted and good fun and 'Woa-heeey!', I was always going home with a big smile on my face. But on The Trench I'd just spend the whole day crying my eyes out and I'd get home - I was living by myself in my flat - and think, 'Oh f***ing hell.' Totally depressed."
After making The Clandestine Marriage, Joan Collins said of her young co-star, "He's our very own Leonardo DiCaprio. He's wonderfully good-looking but, more importantly, he knows how to act and he's willing to learn how to be better." It's a canny comparison. Not least because DiCaprio, since Titanic and his own elevation to sex-symbol status, seems to have believed his own press a mite too much, seems to have buckled under the bad-boy strain. OK, so Paul Nicholls hasn't yet made a blockbuster. But if he does, I bet he'll keep his feet firmly on the ground.
"It's a bit mad, isn't it?" observes Paul Nicholls, ex-Soap's Sexiest Psycho™, of the 52nd Cannes film festival.
Indeed, life's been "a bit mad" for the 20 year-old this year. His debut film role in William Boyd's The Trench garnered him positive reviews and now, in period drama The Clandestine Marriage, he stars alongside quality thesps Timothy Spall and Nigel Hawthorne.Back to the top"I was shitting myself," he remembers of the first day of shooting. "I got on set, got in costume and tried to create a little character for myself."
It was as hirsute unhinged EastEnder Joe Wicks that he landed on the cover of every teen magazine. But it wasn't exactly what Nicholls had been intending. "At 14, when they say, 'Will you just take your shirt off?' you go, 'Oh, alright then,'" he remembers. "It's playing the game."
When he joined EastEnders he got a lot of press attention and the schedule was knackering.
"I went into EastEnders a confident 16 year-old and came out fucking demolished. I didn't have any confidence at all You didn't know where you were going most of the time."
It's an experience that has left him wary of being turned into a Brit version of Leo.
"No way," he responds to the suggestion. "It'd be a fucking nightmare. I just want to get a bit of respect ..."
Ex-EastEnders heart-throb Paul Nicholls visited troubled cocaine addict Danniella Westbrook in rehab - and it's put him off drugs for life.
Back to the topPaul, who confessed last night to experimenting with drugs himself, vowed: "I'll never touch them again."
He told the Sunday People how he was deeply shocked when he saw fallen TV beauty's drug-ravaged face and nose destroyed by cocaine abuse.
His voice quaking with emotion, Paul, 21, who dated Danniella when they both stared in the EastEnders said: "What Danniella has done to herself is tragic.
"She was such a beautiful girl and I was saddened to see her in such a sorry state. But it just shows what drugs can do to you and that it could happen to anyone."
In an astonishingly frank and moving interview, Paul told the Sunday People how he:
Paul told how he went to visit Danniella, 26, in the £4,000-a-week Priory Clinic in south-west London after seeing pictures of her drug disfigured face in newspapers.
"She was over the moon to see me and I went over to her give her a big bear-hug and said how great it was to see her. Admittedly I was at a loss for words as I was so shocked but I know just seeing me meant the world to Dan. She's such a lovely girl and I feel deeply saddened that she's managed to get herself in such a mess. But Danniella is an extremely tough person and I know she'll get through this."
Paul said: "I met Danniella within the first week of filming EastEnders in 1996 and she kindly took me under her wing. But I certainly wasn't aware that she was taking drugs. I never saw her doing anything in front of me - and if she did she kept it well hidden."
"There is so much drug taking going on in this business that you have to be strong-willed not to get involved. I’ve dabbled in them but I have learnt they don't agree with me, so I won't take them. I don't think it's very good for your mental state of mind."
The dangers of taking drugs were starkly brought home to Paul three years ago when a close school friend died of a heroin overdose. He knows that if things had worked out differently in life, it could so easily have been him.
He said: "I couldn't believe it when I found out. I'd known the guy since primary school although I haven't seen him much in recent years. The last time I saw him was when I got the part in EastEnders and he wished me the best of luck.
"Three weeks later I came back to visit my mum and dad and I found out from a friend he was dead."
As a young, handsome and well-paid soap star, Paul enjoyed a hectic social life in the pubs and clubs of London. But he admits the non-stop partying started to take its toll last year.
"I didn't know what I was doing with my life. I became very depressed and self-absorbed."
But then, just when he was at a particularly low point, he met his current girlfriend, a waitress called Carrie, at the Cannes film festival last May. Despite his reputation as a heart-throb, Paul didn't have the courage to approach her directly and had to ask a friend to get her phone number. Even then they did not get together for another four months.
"Before I met her I was looking for love. I felt desperately insecure and was going through a needy stage. Carrie has filled that gap."
The couple live near one another in Kilburn, north London. Paul is currently busy with the play - Mrs Steinberg and the Byker Boy - in which he plays a gay social worker (PNO Note, Paul's character was actually a YTS trainee working in a Charity Shop) who kisses a bloke. So he and Carrie don't spend as much time together as he would like. Any spare time they have is spent relaxing at home as Paul has turned his back on the wild nightlife.
He said: "When I'm not working, Carrie and I prefer to chill out and stay in and get a take-away. After years of mad partying I don't like going to pubs and clubs anymore. I like to get away from it all."
Long day's journey into the soul of a level-headed guy.
Back to the topPaul, who confessed last night to experimenting with drugs himself, vowed: "I'll never touch them again."
It's an irony not lost on Paul Nicholls that the actor who packed Marx, Nietzsche and Zola for his holiday reading would have scaled high slippery walls to avoid such studious behaviour in his truanting school days. But this was an academic urge born of panic. Nicholls, already a seasoned actor at the age of 21, is playing Edmund Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's grueling autobiographical family drama, Long Day's Journey into Night, opening at London's Lyric Shaftesbury this week.
Needless to say, he's somewhat awed by the task. "I was like, how am I going to play this part? This guy's just too intelligent, I don't understand a fucking word of this! I kind of freaked out a bit and got all this stuff. But then I realised it's not about that – it's about his relationship with his family." That said, it is undoubtedly a challenging role: Nicholls' character is essentially dying; what's more, he holds himself responsible for his mother's morphine addiction. It's not going to be the chirpiest production in the West End this winter. Even Nicholls, who immediately strikes one as a cheery, level-headed sort of bloke, admits to going home thoroughly down-beat after a day's rehearsal. "I've never done a show like this before", he explains in between mouthfuls of lamb chop. We have met for lunch during a 50-minute rehearsal break: half our allotted time is spent chewing. "I've only ever done fringe," he continues. "Sometimes I look at it and I think, 'Oh my God, it's such a mountain of a play'." Performing alongside Jessica Lange and Charles Dance only added to initial feelings of intimidation. "The first week I was so nervous I couldn't speak," he confesses. "But then I kind of got over it."
Yet Nicholls is no fledgling thesp. He says he knew he wanted to be an actor from the age of five. By 10, he was on the local stage in Bolton, and by 16, he was EastEnders' hottest-ever property (playing the mentally disturbed Joe Wicks) and the teen magazines' pin-up of choice. Since then, he's barely been out of work. He did The Passion and City Central for the BBC; took the lead role in William Boyd's war film, The Trench; and he cropped up alongside Joan Collins and Nigel Hawthorne in Christopher Miles's The Clandestine Marriage. After a shaky return to the theatre in Billy Liar at the King's Head in Islington, Nicholls won everyone over as an opportunistic young gay man in Michael Wilcox's winningly off-beat play for the Bush, Mrs Steinberg and the Byker Boy. It's taken a while to shake off the legacy of EastEnders, however. After a year-and-a-half of constant media attention and obsessive teenage girls, Nicholls called it quits in 1997 and ducked for cover. It was, he says, making him "defensive and paranoid". And, of course, he was in real danger of being pigeonholed as Britain's most appealing schizophrenic. He still watches the programme – "My granny and Frank!" – and he has fond, formative memories of being introduced to metropolitan life by "two mad Essex girls from the wardrobe department". But he's clearly still waging battle with his good looks, and more specifically, the people who can't see beyond them. He would never get considered for "grotty" parts, he comments – the scripts he gets sent invariably demand an attractive 20-something male – and the paranoia which set in while a soap star was very much to do with his anxieties about not being taken seriously as an actor. Talking about it makes Nicholls decidedly twitchy. He looks genuinely abashed, only too aware how pompous he'll sound if he moans about being too beautiful: the Lancashire lad doth protest too much, he fears they will say.
Nicholls has been (successfully) proving his mettle ever since leaving Albert Square. He got as grotty as he possibly could (that is, not very) playing a First World War soldier in The Trench, and in his latest film, Nick Love's Goodbye Charlie Bright – to be released early next year – he gets to do gritty on a "Sarf" London council estate. But there's just no convincing some people: the waitress manages to find an excuse to change our cutlery no fewer than three times before the meal is served. It could have been her first day, but then again ... To be fair, Nicholls is a competent actor, and it's the one thing in his life in which he has confidence. He regrets leaving school early and his subsequent lack of general knowledge. "I woke up this year and thought, 'I don't know anything.'" Are you self-conscious about it? "Yeah, sometimes," he replies. "When people are talking about politics and I'm like, 'I haven't got a clue what's going on in this country'." I ask him if he voted in the last election and he chokes at the suggestion: "I wouldn't know where to go!
"I've started reading the news, watching the news, trying to become this citizen of society. I kind of feel inadequate sometimes because I don't really know that much." Conscious that he's painting a fairly negative picture of himself, he adds: "But obviously I know more about living – being on my own in a big city having come from a small town." His empirical education has certainly put paid to many youthful instincts. He's done the teenage heart-throb bit, the clubbing, the boozing and the girls. "I feel about 50 now!" he laughs. "I don't want to do it any more. I sit at home with my herbal teas ... I was in bed at 10 o'clock last night," he says with mock horror. Still, his mates back home in Bolton are hardly sowing their wild oats. "It's coming to the point where all my friends are getting their own houses and moving in with their girlfriends," he comments. "Some of them are having kids and it's like ... woah, hang on a minute. We were in school five minutes ago."
Best remembered as EastEnders' sexiest basket case, the luscious 21-year-old Bolton boy (yes, he's still almost jail bait!) tells Laura Millar about oven-cleaning and his secret crush on Nichola from Big Brother ...
Back to the topYou've done films and theatre since EastEnders, but we still can't help looking at you and thinking 'Mad Joe'...
"I think everyone has this enduring image of me plastering my bedroom walls with Bacofoil! I had a great time on EastEnders - I was 16 and living in a house in Essex with two girls who had loads of female mates over all the time ... it was a riot!"
So what's your ideal night out now?
"I like going out for dinner, or to the cinema. And every now and again, I'll find the energy to tidy up my flat."
Um, sounds wild. Is it a typical bachelor pad?
"Well, occasionally you can't see the floor for takeaway cartons, but I like to think I'm quite domesticated. I used to enjoy cooking, but my oven caught fire, so I decided it needed cleaning; I sprayed it with Mr Muscle and left it there ... for four months. Then I tried to cook a pizza, and it came out smelling of Mr Muscle."
Don't think we'll be coming round ...
"I wouldn't! Some of my walls are mould from when my washing machine leaked."
You obviously need a good woman to look after you. I'm available ...
"Sorry, I've got a girlfriend already."
Damn. How did you meet her?
"I was introduced to Carrie at the Cannes film festival last May. I'm not a bloke who can walk up to a woman and say, 'Hi! I really like you!' I'm useless at chatting up women ... Once Carrie gave me her number it took me 3 months to call her."
That's no way to show you're keen.
"I know, I know, I was just nervous. When I did finally ring her, it flowed very smoothly from there. She's amazing."
Are you a romantic?
"Not really. I think being romantic is about being spontaneous, but that kind of thing can only last so long."
Is she your ideal woman then?
"You could say so! Mind you, Nichola from Big Brother's great. I admired the way she didn't give a toss what anyone thought about her. They're not all like her up there, but she's definitely a top Bolton bird!"
Up close, Paul Nicholls is incredibly sexy. Actually, from a distance he's a fine bit of rump steak, too. But at 21 he's far more man than boy.
Back to the topIt's not just those gorgeous eyes, rugged five o'clock shadow or his deep voice with its strangely satisfying Bolton accent, but the fact that he actually has a sense of humour. One minute he's shaking hands, apologising to everybody for being late, the next he's poking fun at himself - about how hairy he is (he's like a rug, no kidding), or how he's the celebrity Norman No Mates. Ever since he left 'Enders (how could we ever forget him as the loopy but luscious Joe Wicks?), here at 19 we were scared he might have slipped into obscurity. But, hoorah, he's back playing the lead character Charlie in Goodbye Charlie Bright, his new film about the friendship of two lads living in London. Once he's grabbed a double espresso, ("I need a serious caffeine hit"), we lure him over to the couch and promise to help him learn his lines for a big audition later - but only if he spills the beans on those willy rumours ...
Your first scene in Goodbye Charlie Bright involves you and two others streaking down the road. Did you need much encouragement?
"The three of us were a bit paranoid about, you know, having our things out on screen and other people seeing the size of our, er, things! Originally we were going to wear these flesh coloured pants, but they were blatantly see through so I said let's just take 'em off - so we did."
Would you say that was one of your more embarrassing moments, then?
"Only one of them. The worst was when we were filming ... and as we were running along naked I suddenly noticed all these schoolgirls standing on a roof watching us. One of them shouted out: 'Fucking hell, that Paul Nicholls has got a small one!' I was like, Arggh!"
Dani Behr plays your girlfriend, but there's no steamy action. Were you disappointed you didn't get to snog?
"I did get to snog her, actually, but those scenes got cut because the director wanted to focus on the relationship between Charlie and his friend Justin and any snogging would have just detracted from that."
Yeah, yeah, but what was it like to snog her?
"She was really lovely to snog - Dani's a really lovely girl."
Does your real life girlfriend, Carrie, mind when you have to get all hot and bothered with other women?
"No, not at all. She knows that I'm acting, and that it's only work. I met her when I went out to the Cannes Film Festival and she was doing the door on the Soho House boat. She gave me her number, but we didn't actually start going out for another five months."
Why on earth not?
"Because I'm crap! I thought she was really beautiful and nice and I was just too scared. After about three months I plucked up the courage to ring her, but when she answered I panicked and put the phone down without saying anything. Sad, isn't it? Then about two months after that she left a message for me. It was definitely worth the wait."
We never see you two out in the gossip pages. Don't you do the celebrity party circuit?
"Nah, it's boring. Even when I was in EastEnders I only went to two premieres and they were both the Scream ones because I'm into Wes Craven films. Most nights I'll just watch a video, have a cup of camomile tea, then go to bed. If I do go out, I like going for a meal or a few cups of coffee."
So no showbiz friends then?
"No [laughing]. Showbiz people won't speak to me. They won't have anything to do with me. It's not my fault - I ring them up every night ..."
What about the whole celebrity lifestyle - designer clothes, fast cars, exotic holidays?
"You're joking! I've got no clean clothes and my flat is a complete tip. I've let things slip because I've been so busy. I'm not sure what the solution is because if I had a cleaner I'd clean up before she arrived. Carrie's cleaner changes everything round all the time. If you leave clothes lying around she'll move them to different places. That would do my head in."
Tell us a secret about yourself
"I have a very, very, hairy back. I'm just a big hairball - a big shaggy dog."
You don't look very hairy in the streaking scene
"That's because they waxed me. My chest, my shoulders, my back - even my feet. And they had to do it about seven times in about as many weeks as it kept growing back."
God, that sounds painful ...
"It was. I couldn't believe how much! And they trimmed my leg and arm hair. I was lying there while one person was waxing me, two were trimming my legs and two were trimming my arms. Mad! And the older I get the thinner my head hair gets and the thicker my body hair gets. Soon I'll be bald, hairy and fat."
Thank God that's a long way off! At least you usually land the heartthrob part and not the minger
"When I get sent scripts I know what part I'm being seen for because it'll say something like 'good looking 21-year-old' - the words 'good looking' are always in there. Sometimes I think other parts look more interesting, but I can't complain - it hasn't stopped me doing some quite meaty stuff."
So now the film's finished, what are you planning next?
"A holiday. I've been working hard so I'm going to bugger off somewhere hot. My girlfriend's family live in South Africa so I might go and stay with them ... and leave here here! No, only joking. "
Paul In 30 Seconds
Emma or Geri?
"Who? Oh, the Spice things ... Emma Bunton"
Up early or lie-in?
"Lie-in"
High street or designer?
"High Street"
Restaurant or takeaway?
"Restaurant"
Brown sauce or ketchup?
"Brown Sauce"
Pyjamas or naked?
"Naked"