00:00 I feel like I have a responsibility and that's what I did with the post office,
00:03 even though I was an actor in a drama.
00:05 Afterwards, when people like yourself or journalists on the news or
00:10 chat show, if they want to ask me, I do have an opinion and I feel it's my duty
00:13 to give my opinion because I have a profile and a platform to use it.
00:17 And if I can use it for good, then I will.
00:19 What was it that first drew you to acting?
00:28 It was just who I was. That's the only way I can explain it.
00:31 As a kid, I grew up in an estate, a council estate with four older sisters.
00:35 So I came out, there was six years between me and the youngest sister to me.
00:40 So they had four girls and then they waited six years and then they had me.
00:46 Coming out as the only boy and being the youngest, I got a lot of attention
00:49 and whether I enjoyed the attention, I don't know whether it was that,
00:53 but I was just always on. I always wanted to entertain.
00:57 I always wanted to make people laugh or, you know, I was always dancing,
01:02 doing impressions, impersonations.
01:03 Every time I went to a butlings or on a caravan site, if there was a talent show,
01:08 I'd go in it. I just wanted to entertain. That's all I can tell you.
01:12 And I had this dream that I was going to be on TV from a very, very young age.
01:18 And then that was that. And then it wasn't until I was 11, 12.
01:24 It was the first time there was a casting for a new agency in Manchester
01:28 called Lane Management, and they were looking for raw talent.
01:30 And they said, if you want to go down, bring your kids down
01:33 and we'll see if they've got something.
01:35 And they took me down, my parents and the agent thought I had something
01:38 and they took me on and said, we think we can do something with him.
01:41 And that was the rest is history, as they like to say.
01:44 Yeah, yeah, for sure. And obviously, you know, you made your mark in soaps,
01:47 but you've since gone on to appear in, you know, acclaimed dramas
01:50 and docuseries like Cops Gone Bad.
01:52 And I wondered, how would you describe the way that your acting
01:56 and approach to the entertainment industry as a whole has developed over the years?
02:01 I've always been of the opinion that I never want to be put into a box and say,
02:05 well, this is what I do, because there's more to me than just being an actor.
02:10 I sing, I taught myself to play the piano at a young age,
02:13 and I used to sit and play the piano and sing all the time.
02:17 And any kind of entertainment is sort of where I want to be.
02:22 I enjoy the factual side of the entertainment because I get to be myself,
02:27 whereas when I'm acting, I have to be somebody else.
02:30 Where I'm sort of quite comfortable in my own skin, I'm being myself and talking.
02:34 I love meeting people and doing factual.
02:36 It helps me to meet different people,
02:38 find myself in different scenarios and surroundings.
02:40 And I enjoy that.
02:41 I just don't ever want to be one thing.
02:44 And I like to do different things.
02:45 I like to challenge myself and learn.
02:47 I'm always learning. I'm always, yeah, I'm always sort of on the move.
02:50 I never sit still.
02:52 Obviously, the police are under a lot more scrutiny nowadays in the news and in the public eye.
02:59 I wondered, why do you feel like it's important to have shows like this now on TV?
03:04 I watch lots of programmes like 24 Hours of Police Custody,
03:07 or, you know, Suspect Number One or anything like that.
03:11 I enjoy watching them to see how the police work, to see how they do their job.
03:17 There's ways of doing this.
03:18 And I think when they first asked me to do Cops Who Kill,
03:22 they said, we want someone to represent the public and be a real person,
03:26 ask real questions and have real emotions when you see what's going on here.
03:30 And I said, that's me.
03:31 I'm happy being myself.
03:33 And I'd rather people get to see me and hear what I have to say genuinely,
03:38 because I believe there's an honesty and a truth that comes from that.
03:43 And I wanted to make sure I asked the questions that people are shouting at the TV.
03:47 I found myself watching programmes going,
03:50 well, why don't you ask them that?
03:51 Or why don't you say this?
03:51 Or I wish they'd have said this or asked that.
03:53 So I just wanted to represent the public in this and come on the journey with me
03:57 while I find out what these police officers did, how they did it, why they did it,
04:02 and how can we prevent this happening again in the future?
04:04 There is a necessity for the public to know what's going on.
04:08 And also, I think the police should be interested in finding a way of
04:12 being able to trust within their units to point out a bad egg if they see one,
04:16 because I think there's a lot of times it's gone on where people have protected their own.
04:21 It's giving the police, the great police that are out there,
04:26 the confidence to be able to stand up and lift their head above the parapet and say,
04:29 no, there's a bad egg here and we need to have a look at them.
04:32 We're not cop bashing here, because we know 99% of police are great police.
04:36 What we're doing here is saying, if you do see it, say it before something bad happens.
04:40 Like Wayne Cousins, like with Sarah Everard,
04:43 and David Carrick got away with it for far too long.
04:46 Thank God they caught him in the end,
04:48 and it comes down to the great police work that they did catch him,
04:51 and now he's in prison for the rest of his life.
04:53 You've seen firsthand how shows like Mr Bates vs the Post Office can enact real change in real time
04:59 when the public get to know more about these subjects.
05:01 I want to do hope that Cops Gone Bad will be able to do the same.
05:05 Doing Cops Gone Bad, Cops Who Kill, the Post Office scandal, and all that sort of stuff,
05:10 it just gives me a chance to help, hopefully, right some wrongs.
05:14 And if I can be a small piece of this puzzle, and righting some wrongs,
05:18 then great, I've done something good.
05:20 And that's all I ever want.
05:22 And sometimes I go in, I play a character, and it stays there.
05:26 But with the Post Office, it was more than that,
05:29 because I was playing a real person, and it's an ongoing thing that's happening now.
05:32 All I ever want, when I do these kind of things, is to find an improvement.
05:37 Like, let's learn from our mistakes.
05:39 And the problem you've got with police is there's so much power that comes with that badge.
05:43 And it's just how they tighten that net to stop them slipping through,
05:49 whether they have to make changes in the recruitment.
05:53 And I don't know.
05:55 All I know is we put it out there, and we ask the question.
05:58 And I think it's only right for the public to know.
06:00 But I have to reiterate again, we are not cop bashing.
06:05 We know you can't tie everyone with the same brush.
06:07 I hate it when people say, "Oh, I don't like them because they come from that country."
06:11 "Oh, I don't like them because they do that job."
06:13 It's like, no, judge people as an individual.
06:16 These are individuals who did horrendous things, and they got punished for it.
06:21 All we're trying to say is, how do we prevent this from happening again?
06:23 Were there any mentors in your life or career who you would say
06:29 had a defining influence on you and your career path?
06:32 Tell you what, this is a strange one, but my school gave up on me.
06:36 When I was at school, they didn't understand me.
06:39 And I told them I wanted to be an actor and a performer.
06:41 And apparently, I wasn't ever going to do that.
06:44 Even my drama teacher said, "You're a failure. You're never going to be anything."
06:46 And that drove me on, to be honest.
06:48 It could have crushed me, but it didn't.
06:49 And they actually threw me out of all the classes,
06:52 apart from maths, English, and science,
06:54 and told me I had to sit at the back of the class with headphones on
06:57 so I didn't disrupt the class because I had all this energy, which is so bad.
07:01 But the head teacher, Mr. Nolan, I'm never forgetting,
07:04 sat me down and he just said, "Listen, I don't want to throw you out of school."
07:07 "I understand what you're trying to do here."
07:09 "I want to support you, but I have to support the teachers at the same time."
07:13 And it just made me think, "Somebody gets me."
07:16 And then he came to see me.
07:18 I was doing a musical in Manchester called "Oh, What a Night,"
07:20 where I met my wife.
07:21 I was about 21, 22 years old.
07:23 And I got a letter, and it was in my dressing room,
07:26 and it was from Mr. Nolan.
07:27 And he said, "I knew I was right to stick by you. Keep going, kid."
07:30 And do you know what?
07:32 It made me feel somebody understood me.
07:35 Not a lot of people did get me.
07:37 I am an advocate now, speaking out to people and teachers,
07:40 just to say, "Hey, we're not all academics."
07:42 "But it doesn't mean we're failures, because we're not."
07:44 Love that.
07:45 If you could go back in time and give young Will any advice
07:48 on how to change his origin story, what would it be and why?
07:52 I'd just try and ask him to calm down and take time out every now and then,
07:56 because I don't know whether it's possible,
07:58 because that's part of my drive.
08:00 But my head doesn't stop, you know what I mean?
08:02 And I'd sort of say, "Don't worry so much,"
08:06 because I worry about a lot of things and stress about a lot of things.
08:10 So, yeah, I'd just try and say,
08:14 "Sometimes sit back and have a look at the world around you,
08:17 because if you keep going at this pace, you'll just miss it all."
08:20 So, yeah, and you don't have to be the most entertaining person in the room.
08:25 If I walked into a room, I felt like I had to entertain everybody.
08:28 And I didn't, but I felt like it was my responsibility to do so,
08:32 whether that's a nervous energy, whether it's a part of ADHD,
08:34 whether it's a part of just me being me.
08:37 But I'd just sort of say, "Calm down a bit, lad. You'll be all right."
08:40 [MUSIC]
Comments