Former EastEnder Paul Nicholls talks about his new role Law And Order: UK
If you were a teenage girl in the mid-Nineties, then chances are you had a poster of Paul Nicholls adorning your bedroom wall. The pin-up star was a household name thanks to his role as the troubled Joe Wicks in EastEnders, a soap he joined at the age of 16.
By the time he left a year later, he was one of the country’s highest earning teenagers and received more fan mail than the rest of the cast combined.
“I can’t really remember it. It’s really weird. I remember driving to work and being on set a few times, but if I ever look back now, it’s just blank,” says 32-year-old Nicholls.
It’s a bit like listening to someone with post traumatic stress disorder.
“No, not like that,” he laughs loudly. “I just can’t really remember being in it. I do recall coming out of EastEnders and the attention dying down 50 per cent in the first six months, and then a couple of years later it was 95 per cent.”
But people do still shout out his name, or to be more frank, ‘Joe’.
“It’s always to do with EastEnders, even after all these years,” says Nicholls.
Dressed down in jeans and a simple woollen jumper, there’s no hiding his good looks. And while he makes no secret of the fact he’s dying for a cigarette, still manages to be charming, chatty company for the duration of the interview.
A quick google search shows he doesn’t do many interviews and he’s only turned up today to talk about his new role in Law And Order: UK.
“While it’s your job to promote something when you’re in it, I don’t want that kind of spotlight,” he says, stuttering a bit.
“It’s weird isn’t it? Being an actor, you want people to say you’re good at what you do, but on the other hand, you don’t want people looking at you.”
He makes a gasping-like sound while laughing, before adding: “I did a couple of radio plays and thought, ‘This is perfect for me’ because no one’s watching and I can act. It was great.”
In the new series of Law And Order: UK, he plays DS Sam Casey, a man who Nicholls says “lets his heart rule his head”.
“He’s very temperamental. Though he does his job quite well, the technicalities of the law rub him up the wrong way and you see this immaturity.”
Casey was called upon to head up an investigation following the shooting of fellow police officer Matt Devlin, played by Jamie Bamber.
Nicholls enjoys the fact that the characters are there to solely serve the purpose of the story.
“The crime and motive of why someone would do something like that is always central. The writing doesn’t delve into the personal side of the police officers or lawyers.”
He still did a lot of research in preparation for the role. “Some of it was useful and some was a waste of time, but you feel like you’re doing your job,” he says, chuckling again.
Despite his dislike of interviews, he laughs a lot - and admits he smiles even more on set, while acting across from comedian Bradley Walsh, who plays Ronnie Brooks.
“He’s a joker. He’s got so much energy and he’s very, very funny. I was constantly corpsing,” says Nicholls.
Born in Bolton (though he speaks with a London accent after living in the capital for over 15 years), Nicholls’s father is a roofer and his mother was a nurse, though she was accepted into RADA when she was 17.
“But she never went. My grandfather had an accident down the mine... anyway she couldn’t go,” he says, stopping himself from revealing too much.
He discovered his passion for acting when he took part in a school pantomime. He later joined Oldham Theatre Workshop and recalls: “There were some really nice kids there, but there were also some who left you going, ‘Oh God, I really don’t want to be like you’.”
At the age of 10 he was cast in Children’s Ward and by 15 had appeared in Earthfasts and The Biz.
Then along came EastEnders, though he wasn’t afraid to walk away at the peak of his fame. And that’s despite his previous wake-up call when he was working on his first theatre job, aged 11.
“I was enjoying it so much, a few of the actors sat me down and said, ‘It’s not always like this. 80 per cent of the time we’re unemployed and if you’re going to be an actor, you really need to take that on board’.”
He adds he always knew there would be a time when he was out of work, and that happened shortly after leaving EastEnders. Initially he appeared in cop show City Central, in a role written specifically for him, but then suffered a dry spell in 1999.
“I got offered work that I didn’t think was very good, so I turned it down,” he says.
Since then, he’s worked steadily, accumulating a wide range of roles, from Jesus Christ in The Passion and an art thief alongside Julie Walters in the Bafta-winning Canterbury Tales, to a charming holidaymaker who stitches Renee Zellweger up in the Bridget Jones sequel and a violent man in Channel 4’s explicit Clapham Junction.
Despite his success, he admits there was a time he regretted not going to drama school.
“I was tempted, only for the fact you could feel more like an actor, but people told me I’d learn more on the job than at school,” he says.
And then he read David Mamet’s book True Or False.
“He hates drama schools and basically said there’s a generation of actors who want to learn about acting but are too scared to actually do it.
“You have to face your fears and jump into the world of theatre, TV or film, and try to swim.”
Nicholls now lives in North London with his wife, Chantal, a model he married in 2008. He laughs when fatherhood is mentioned and simply replies: “Not right now.” Instead, the focus is his work.
“I’d love to do some more theatre and another series of Law And Order, but beyond that, you can’t really say.
“You can turn up to auditions, you can try and write or direct your own films, but it’s not in your power to make plans. It’s frustrating, but it’s also what makes this job so exciting.”
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