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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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FOR a lad who was once the blue-eyed boy of soap opera, Paul Nicholls has made some canny choices since quitting his starring role in EastEnders.
Back to the topThose who expected him to go the Nick Berry or Michelle Collins route into a succession of money-spinning prime-time TV dramas were dead wrong.
Instead, the 22-year-old has consistently picked quality projects – from an acclaimed West End run of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night alongside Jessica Lange and Charles Dance to home-grown independent films like Goodbye Charlie Bright.
Nicholls, who is now starring in Alexei Arbuzov’s drama The Promise at Kilburn’s tiny Tricycle Theatre, blames his retreat from celebrity on his dislike of the paparazzi-go-round of British soapstardom.
"People make a living out of just being seen out and I think how could you do that? I liked doing EastEnders but I didn’t enjoy all the attention that went with it. It just isn’t me," he says.
In truth, living under the media microscope at the tender age of 17 (the tabloids went wild when he dated fellow EastEnder Martine McCutcheon) would either make you insufferably arrogant or a recluse.
Half an hour in his company reveals him to be a mercifully normal, slightly shy young man with an endearingly strong work ethic and an earnest desire to improve his acting skills – rather than make a mint in bland TV projects.
He liked his 18-month stint on EastEnders because the 40 scenes a day felt like proper work. Whereas his recent filming of an eight-part Carlton drama called Blue Dove involved a lot of sitting around.
"I would think, 'This isn't working, I am not working. I want to work, not just stand around for five hours then turn up and say three lines.' I can't stand feeling like that because I sit back and get lazy and hate myself."
He adds: "After EastEnders I was still only 18 but in a financial position so that I didn't have to jump into anything. I could wait for the good stuff to come along and luckily it did. My main priority is to progress at this job and have a career. Obviously sometimes you have to earn money but I get so much more from theatre.
"I come home at the end of the day and I always feel I have progressed in some way."
He is full of enthusiasm and energy for his latest project and visibly struggling with its challenges.
Partly set during the siege of Leningrad – when thousands of citizens starved during the bitter winter of 1941/1942 – Nicholls' character Marat loses his family and forges a binding tie with two other disenfranchised Russian teenagers.
Against a background of disintegrating dreams of revolution, the trio become embroiled in a love triangle in which the girl must make an impossible choice between the two men who love her.
In addition to being delighted to work up the road from his home (he says he loves Kilburn because "it's like being up north"), he thinks the play is "brilliant".
"The first time I read it I was blown away. It struck me at first as a tragic love story as the siege brings everyone together in an almost magical way. But the more I do it, the more I am getting out of it," says Nicholls.
"I am working with a brilliant director and actors. I am watching them, trying to understand the play, do it to the best of my ability and hopefully progress."
Despite his young age, Nicholls is a seasoned performer, notching up his first stage appearance in his native Bolton at the age of 10.
On the back of some children's television roles, he was signed up to Sylvia Young's acting agency shortly before the call came through for the EastEnders audition.
Nicholls says Sylvia Young warned him that she had seen other young kids become "messed up" by the experience of early fame.
"I was like yeah, yeah, it's just another job. I went for the audition and started the next day – then I realised it wasn't just another job,” he laughs.
Perhaps the common thread in Nicholls' roles has been his utter commitment to each part. As schizophrenic teenager Joe Wicks he was called upon to wrap tin foil around his head to prevent aliens from beaming signals into his head. He correctly identifies that anything less than a bravura performance would have flopped.
"I loved it," he laughs. "I got to run around the set completely off my head. You can't have a method underneath that, you have just got to go for it. It was a licence to go as far as you wanted to, even though my friends up north really took the piss out of me."
On his first day filming Goodbye Charlie Bright, which is set entirely on a south London housing estate, he says he was terrified to be confronted with a host of native Londoners in the cast. "I thought, 'Oh my god, I am playing the lead, I am a northerner, how am I going to get it?' I realised that I was never going to get that experience of 25 years living in south London so I had to look at the character, see who he was and go for that.”
He was similarly "terrified" at taking on the role of Jessica Lange's adored consumptive son in A Long Day's Journey into Night.
"O'Neill wrote that play to get rid of his demons around his family. The whole thing is full of resentment, lost love and guilt and ran for three and a half hours a night. It was very draining and a mammoth thing for me.
"I had never been on a stage that big. But I have realised that every job I do is different and that you are going to have your fears about it. I get this fear before any job I do and that's OK."
His next challenge is a modest role in a play at the National Theatre called Vincent In Brixton.
"I am not even thinking about it," he says.
"In the future I would love to do more film but any job would be brilliant. I don't know how I will feel in a couple of years' time but for now I would rather be doing theatre."
Paul Nicholls was 16 when he became 'TV's sexiest schizophrenic' as Joe Wicks in EastEnders. After appearing in police drama City Central, and several British films, including coming-of-age drama Goodbye Charlie Bright, he turned his attention to his first love, theatre. He is currently playing Van Gogh's fellow lodger in West End play Vincent In Brixton.
Back to the topMy friend didn't know who you were until I said 'Joe' in my best Northern accent. Can you never escape that?
It's no big thing any more. It's such a big show and so many people watch it that I don't think it ever goes away. There are some people who were in EastEnders 15 years ago and they're still doing pantomime off the back of it. So I don't think that it ever goes away. That's cool.
Panto pays well, after all...
Yeah, I've done it twice when I was in EastEnders, and in ten years' time, I might be doing it again. Who knows? [laughs] 'I was Joe in EastEnders, once.'
You were earning a reported £70,000 from EastEnders when you were 16. Did you go crazy?
Yeah, I don't think it did me any favours [laughs]. At the time I thought it was great, but looking back on it, it was just an excuse to feel that I could do whatever I wanted and behave in any way I wanted, and you can't live like that, can you?
Is it true you were in Spiceworld but your scene was cut?
That was when I was in EastEnders and my agent was Sylvia Young, who also represented Emma Bunton. I think Emma said to Sylvia: 'Who have you got in EastEnders and we'll put them in the film?' So I was put up for one scene. It was only a two-second one, but there were too many other people they had to put in, like Elton John, and there's me from EastEnders, so I got chopped.
Is it intimidating being directed by a theatre demi-god such as Richard Eyre?
It would be, but he's such a lovely man. It kind of seemed like that at first, but when you're working with him he becomes Richard the director, rather than 'Richard Eyre'. When we're in rehearsals, all of us just listen to him and learn so much. It's just f***ing brilliant, really [laughs]. It's a dream.
You're enjoying it, then?
I'm loving it, absolutely f***ing loving it to bits [laughs].
You're doing a lot of theatre at the moment. Is that a conscious decision
Yeah. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to do films, but theatre's just more... more, erm, at the risk of sounding like a dickhead, it just fills you up. It's such a lovely feeling. And every night I find I'm learning something new, no matter how small, and working with other good actors on stage is, for me, how you learn and get better.
Do you have to audition?
Every part I've ever had I've auditioned for, apart from City Central, which was straight after EastEnders and the BBC said: 'He's got such a good profile that we'll give him a part in the show.'
Do you get nervous before you go on-stage?
Oh yeah [laughs]. It's weird because the cast were off for a month and when we came back to do the show every single one of us was horrified, even though before we had been doing it day after day after day, two matinées a week. But the nerves come back with a bit of time off.
So what do you do during the day?
Obsess [laughs]. As soon as you wake up, you're saying the lines in your head. Actually, I did that for four months before, and I've no intention of doing it this time, because if you think about it all day, you get on stage and it's not spontaneous. I find I've done the best shows when I've slept all day, and I've woken up and got to the theatre five minutes late, thrown my clothes on and gone straight on. It all depends on the show for me, it can go one way or the other, but this one has always gone the right way.
Is it true you had a full body wax for Goodbye Charlie Bright?
Not a full one, just my chest and my back, because I was playing a 17-year-old, and the first scene was these three kids running through town naked. They looked at my chest and said: 'There's no f***ing way you could pass for 17, because you look like a forest.' So they had to wax me, and they said it should take six weeks to grow back, so I thought: 'Cool, I'll only have to have it done once for the filming'. Anyway, a week later, it was back. I had to have it done six times, and it was very painful.
So you wouldn't recommend it?
It's pain like I've never felt before. Absolutely terrible. Don't do it.
Is this the biggest London show you'll have done?
Well, I did Long Day's Journey Into Night at the Lyric, which was a good experience. But it was four hours long, a classic play, which I did love doing, but Vincent In Brixton is just a lot more fun.
You were at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn before this?
I was, and that was quite good fun. This play is still hard work, but there's a lot more reward from it.
Is there a difference between fringe theatre and the West End?
Obviously the size of the theatre, but all the elements are basically the same. You get up there and it could go one way or another, you know what I mean? The fear's still there, you're still getting up in front of people and going: 'This is what I'm doing and hopefully you're going to like it.'
Is it tiring doing eight performances a week?
When I was doing Long Day's Journey Into Night it was, yeah. On this one, it's still tiring, but Jochum, the guy who plays Vincent, and Clare who plays Ursula, are on stage most of the time. I'm kind of in-and-out. So it is tiring, but more so for them, because they've got more work to do than me.
You used to get 500 fan letters a week in EastEnders. Do you still get fan mail?
A little bit. Not like that though [laughs]. It mostly comes to the theatre.
Do you read them all?
I do, yeah. I can't say I've been that great on replying to all of them, but I have replied.
So what's next?
Oh, God. Dunno. I'm stacked up with this for three months, which will be fantastic, and then it's part of being an actor that you never know what you're going to do next, or where you're going to be or who you're going to be playing.
And you enjoy that?
Yeah, it definitely has a certain excitement, but sometimes it can be a bit unnerving as well. But I love my job, so it's worth it.
Heart-throb Paul Nicholls resorted to booze binges to help him cope with stardom.
Back to the topPaul, 23, who played Joe Wicks in EastEnders, says he was haunted by his low opinion of himself. I spent six months drunk,he told TV Plus.
I looked at myself and didn't like what I'd turned into, said Paul, who returns to the small screen in Blue Dove on ITV1 this July. He also has advice for troubled actress Michelle Ryan, who plays Zoe Slater.
The mantle "heart-throb" sits awkwardly with the TV actor.
Being recognised doesn't really affect me, but when you're in EastEnders you are in people's living rooms and their lives, so you are going to get recognised.
I found myself walking with my head down. When I came out of the show I looked at myself and I didn't like what I turned into. I just didn't know what was going on, said a relaxed, and more mature, Paul.
The pin-up star recalls how early fame turned his head.
I tried not to get above myself but it sort of went the other way, said Paul. It was the same coin but the other side, which is just as pathetic. I became shy, introvert.
Now he appears confident, relaxed and happy to be in the spotlight as he recalls his early days. I'm very ambitious, acting is my thing and I'm good at it, which is why I'm here.
Paul says teenage soap star Michelle Ryan faces the same problems that he did as a 16-year-old actor.
Even though I enjoyed EastEnders it was hard. It's hard growing up anyway, but when you've got to deal with being in the public eye it can have all kinds of effects, he said.
Ryan (who plays Zoe Slater) has been given indefinite time off work.
I enjoyed it but I was definitely too young, said Paul, who still watches the Walford saga.
Paul turned to family and friends when the pressures of leaving EastEnders got too much.
I was drunk for six months. If I felt bad I just went out and got drunk. I didn't deal with anything. But I got over it. I stopped going out so much, started chilling out and stopped worrying so much about what other people thought about me.
Working in theatre and on other TV shows helped, too.
The hunky actor has vowed not to get involved with women after the break-up of a two-year relationship.
I'm just going to have a year on my own and enjoy my own time, he said.
Just chill out and do what I want to do. I did make a decision to be on my jack for a while and that's what I did. I love working, and with acting it's hard because you never know where you are going to be.
A new moustache, grown for his National Theatre role in Vincent In Brixton, hasn't helped him meet the ladies.
It's not doing anything for my sex life, he joked.
I was in a club dancing and looking pretty cool and there were two girls smiling at me, but then I realised they were laughing at me.
When they told me I should grow a moustache I just buried my head in my hands and went 'Oh no!'.
He was troubled Joe Wicks in EastEnders, a rookie cop in City Central, starred in The Passion, and now, for the first time in three years, Nicholls is back on TV screens in the major ITV drama Blue Dove.
Back to the topWhen he joined the cast of EastEnders at the age of sixteen, Paul Nicholls didn't know what he was in for. From being a happy-go-lucky teenager, he turned 'into a total shit.' A really rather unpleasant person. 'I wasn't at all happy with myself at all. I was arrogant and rude, I think, and I started drinking far too much. I'd wake up in the mornings, nursing my head, and thinking "Never again," only to go and do it all over again that same night. I partied hard, I'll give you that. I'd go to all the openings, grab all the opportunities offered me. I think that I was drunk for four months on the go, at one point.'
Paul takes a swig of mineral water and says: 'So I gave it up. Don't know when the moment came that I realised that I was making a total arse of myself, but come it did. I think that probably there was a moment when it all calmed down, and you're just left with you, and you think to yourself Fuck! What am I doing?" And if you're a sensitive person - which I am, I think - you realise that you've got to start caring. For others as well as for yourself. Now, I take life as it comes - if you're always expecting something big, you're going to have a lot of disappointments. But I learned that the hard way, believe me. I haven't had a drop of alcohol for a couple of years now. None at all. I don't miss it, either. And I hope that I'm a far better person. I certainly feel better - more relaxed, in control and enjoying life without the booze to back me up and make me bolder. If you can't go home and feel comfortable with yourself, what's the point?'
'I sympathise with all the kids in soaps like EastEnders, I really do - you just don't know the pressure that you're under all the time. You're constantly in the spotlight and under a microscope. Time was, back then, when I used to read stuff about me in the papers that I just didn't recognise, and I'd really worry about it all - and get angry. Everything that I did was an issue with the press. Now, well, you can print whatever bullshit you like, make it all up if you want, and it doesn't worry me one little bit. I've stopped worrying about what other people think about me.' Paul is now 23, single, and wears a huge and amiable grin on his face. His sapphire blue eyes flash. He's a lovely, likeable lad. No wonder so many gay men want to pick him up and cuddle him. They send him fan mail by the bushel. He loves the recognition, and says that he feels proud that people should want to write to him. A few years back, though, they'd probably not have enjoyed meeting him - his body language back then said it all. For my interview of the old-style Paul, he lounged in a chair in a provocative but carefully posed slouch. He dressed to the left, I can remember that much - and those trousers were tight, believe me. He was threatening, but cocky with it. Insolent in his attitude, if not in his answers. Too clever by three-quarters. Designer labels all over the place. A right big head.
There's been a 180 degree change. Today, he's all at ease, like a very large, lolloping and friendly puppy. 'Acting is what I adore - if I had my way, it would be for every minute of every day. Being with the Royal National recently [in the hit play 'Vincent in Brixton,' Ed] was an honour. But then, a few years ago, doing pantomime in Halifax was an honour, too. This profession is full of out-of-work actors, and I seem to have lead a pretty charmed and lucky life - touch wood - so far. And I'm still learning things, every time I'm on a stage or on a film or TV set. I look at my friends and family back in Bolton (they're the people who keep me grounded and sane) and they're working their bollocks off, doing jobs like roofers, brickies and builders. Seven days a week, to earn a living. So I honestly can't complain, can I, about doing the job I love and getting - some of the time - pretty well paid for it. My dad is a roofer, and I worked for him as a lad, so I know what it's like - and which I prefer. But money is not an issue with me. It's really not that important, as long as I can pay the bills and buy me fags.'
Life is a perpetual learning curve, he thinks. 'Like, at the National, I was looking all the time at what the others were doing, and wondering how they can pull something like that off. I never went to drama school - although that was what I hoped to do when I was first offered Joe, in EastEnders. I thought "About three months of this, put a bit of money in the bank, and then off to college." It didn't happen, and Joe's character got more and more dominant. I stuck it out for a year and seven months. Well, obviously I'd never played a part for as long as that before, and it finally dawned on me that it was time to leave. I'd done as much as I could with Joe. I had extreme satisfaction with the role for the first year, but it didn't seem to grow or to be going anywhere from there. The fact of the matter was that I was getting to feel really secure and settled. The money was coming in, it was regular work, I was in something watched by seventeen million people, and I was in the spotlight. But I really wasn't feeling personally fulfilled, and I had to do something else. If I was going to be out of work when I left Albert Square, my feeling was "So be it - 90 per cent of my profession is... I'll have to join the club"!'
As it happened, he was immediately offered stage work (he got panned in the reviews for a revival tour of 'Billy Liar,' but his fans turned up in their thousands) and then got offered the role of Terry Sydenham, the rookie cop in the first series of 'City Central,' and a leading part in the TV drama 'The Passion.' 'In "Billy Liar," I don't think that I did a very good job. Some of the reviews were, erm, polite. Others were downright blunt. I lost my confidence entirely. No-one else to blame for it all than myself: it was simply the wrong part for me to return to acting. Wrong director, too. It just didn't work. The next thing I did was an epic - "Long Day's Journey into Night," by Eugene O'Neill. That was a totally different experience. OK, I still don't think I was 100 per cent, but my God, I learned a hell of a lot.'
'In fact, I at one point turned down far more than I actually did,' he laughs, 'because a lot of the scripts I was sent were so boringly predictable. They all started, "Paul takes off his top and pants, and gets into the shower." It's very complimentary that people seemed to want to see the full Monty, me arse and chest and me tackle, but I just wasn't interested. I waited until "City Central" broke the duck. I only did one series of that - it was all that I wanted to do, and they killed me off in the first episode of the second strand, because I was adamant that I would not be returning.'
'It was not a career choice; it was purely and simply an acting choice. If there are good scripts around - like "Blue Dove" - I have no hesitation in signing up for a long-running series. If the ratings for "Blue Dove" do well, then I'd be more than happy to make some more, principally because I like the character they've given me, a rather strong-willed young businessman called Nick Weston. He's sensitive, but he's also strong-willed, and doesn't let things get in his way.' Paul laughs: 'It helps that he owns a rather nice smart wardrobe of clothes, and drives a flash car... basically, he thinks he's God's gift!'
He's about to be seen in a pair of films called 'Joyrider' and (the sequel) 'High Speed' which are adventure yarns, mainly about motor bikes. 'I've driven a moped before, so when they asked me if I could ride a motorbike I said "Yes" without hesitation or a second thought. There's a vast difference, believe me! But you should see me in all the leather gear. We made those in Luxembourg, although they're supposed to be set in London. Apparently, it's a bloody sight cheaper to have Luxembourg stand in for London, than it is to shoot it in the real venue. The problem with those movies was that the production side just didn't have a clue, or so it seemed to me... so what they'll look like when they're released is anyone's guess.'
'I liked a film I did, last year, called "Goodbye Charlie Bright," which did pretty well on release. And next, I'm going to start shooting on a film called "Telstar," which Nick Moran originally wrote as a play, and which is all about the British pop world of the early sixties. I'm playing the pop star, Heinz, whose main claim to fame was that he had peroxide blonde hair, so I'm going to have to dye mine to the same colour. That's going to be fun for four weeks, isn't it! He was also a pretty closeted gay guy... a lot of the Joe Meeks stable of talent were. It wasn't something that they wanted publicised back then. Now, it's almost a requirement, innit!'
There were moments in the past, he admits, when he realised just how big an item he'd become. Paul was, for example, constantly on the covers of TV and teenie magazines. 'This old mate of mine and I went into Asda in Bolton one time, and there I was, grinning like an idiot from just about every bloody cover on the shelves. But then it dawned on me that everyone knew me back home, and that this wasn't an issue for them. In fact, they just couldn't have cared less. That's possibly the first time that I started seeing things in a sensible way. I thought "What the hell. I want to be an actor - not a bloody TV star".'
So, does Hollywood appeal to him? 'Well, I've got an agent over there, and I think I might go out there at the end of the year for a couple of weeks, just to suss it out. But the idea of hanging around by a pool for half a year, just waiting for the phone to ring, doesn't appeal at all. Not when the working is coming in, nicely thank you, over here. I'm far happier in Kilburn or Bolton, actually. Going down the pub with me mates. For a cup of coffee. Life is great, and I'm enjoying myself. What more can I say? I've learned to relax.'
Back to the topFor one rare moment, Paul Nicholls is rendered speechless.
What, take a date to the movies? It’s a concept that the former EastEnders heart-throb can’t quite get his head around. "I absolutely love the cinema, but if I did have a girlfriend, I probably wouldn’t take her with me," he admits. "I'd much rather go on my own."
Good grief, Paul, is there no romance in your soul? "Yeah, it's just not been coming out lately," he quips. Strictly speaking, that's not entirely true because he's been living the life of a consummate romantic all summer in Nottingham — an existence that was challenging and not a little scary. This has nothing to do with the fact that Nicholls is the headlining star of BBC One's current series A Thing Called Love, written by William Ivory (The Sins), and everything to do with the fact that he couldn't see much of himself in his character — the idealistic dreamer Gary Scant, who has a decidedly uncompromising view of true love. Would he get the essence of Gary, "who is completely unselfish and always concerned about other people"?
"I'm not like that," says Nicholls, who was only 16 when he became TV's sexiest schizophrenic as EastEnders' Joe Wicks. "My concerns are about me and I am going to do the job well. There are characteristics about Gary that I don't understand and so I found it quite daunting to make him as real as I possibly could." Which is where Nicholls's natural-born intuition comes in. He's had no formal acting training — unless you count local youth theatre — and yet when he arrived in that unsettling role in the BBC soap, he was utterly credible. But in his own way, Paul also became a troubled soul.
One minute he was a kid doing a milk round in Bolton, helping his roofer dad on Saturdays, and the next he was living in London — a household name, beaming cutely from magazine covers and earning around £70 ,000 a year. "You're just not equipped to handle all that. No matter who you are and who you have around you." Alcohol became his prop. When he quit EastEnders he worked non-stop for 12 months — on the cop drama City Central and The Passion for TV and a couple of movies, including the well-received The Trench. He was still only 19 and although, professionally speaking, he never let anyone down, he was, he says, living in oblivion, "getting off my head and doing what I thought was fun".
Several months and many hangovers later, he woke up to the fact that actually, no, it wasn't much fun. "And so now I don't drink. Not even a glass of wine at dinner because I always thought that's what it would be — a couple of beers with my mates. But it turned into something else. A day and a half. Then I'd wake up and not be able to move for a day. I won't say it's a life-long decision, but I tried living sober, then going back to drinking and then to sobriety again, and I knew which I wanted."
He is refreshingly unaffected. Not for him the more obvious soap-star route with a succession of money-spinning prime-time TV dramas. All right, so there's been the odd gaffe (The Clandestine Marriage), but his instincts have led mostly to some varied choices on stage and TV: he's played Edmund in Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey into Night alongside Jessica Lange; Van Gogh's lodger in the award-winning Vincent in Brixton at the National in London; and the fading soap star Julie Walters's eye candy in the rollicking BBC update of The Wife of Bath. A Venetian wartime drama opposite Derek Jacobi is next on the cards. For now, though, William Ivory's earthy and direct take on relationships will suffice. And, of course, Gary's fantasies of that perfect relationship — a quest which has so far eluded the effusive Mr Nicholls.
My favourite capital haunts.
Back to the topI first came down from Bolton to London when I was 16 and would sit in Piccadilly Circus for hours and just watch the Coca-Cola sign changing.
I had seen the same sign in the film An American Werewolf in London and couldn't believe I was actually in the same place.
Same with Trafalgar Square. I used to blow the entire day watching the tourists climbing the lions. They seemed so happy. People are so much freer when they forget themselves in big cities, don't you think?
I've stopped going to the cinema in London. Too much talking. Last time I went, a bloke was chatting on his mobile and wouldn't shut up. So I get most of my DVDs in advance from the US at Pioneer on Shaftesbury Avenue. I saw House of Flying Daggers months before it opened here. DVDs are my addiction - I have more than 2,000 now.
I spent a lot of years only knowing London through it's nightlife. Last year I decided to discover the day time and went to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington and loved it. I would never have thought I'd be into the age of rocks but the geological exhibits were compulsive.
The other thing I've taken up recently is boxing. I box at The Third Space in Soho. They do sparring classes on Friday nights. There's always someone ready for a fight, but in a good way.
The place I'm seeing most of at the moment is Kilburn Flowers, just outside Kilburn Tube. I buy bunches of red roses for my girl there. No, I'm not going to give you her name, but she knows who she is.