Cosmo wanted me to be a nude centrefold!

FOR Casualtystar and Strictly Come Dancing hotstepper Will Thorp, celebrity is something of a dirty word.
Despite becoming a housewives' heartthrob during his role as Woody on the wards of Holby General, and then winning an army of fans on the TV ballroom dancing phenomenon, Will is adamant that the only thing he wants to be known for is his thespian skills.
And that's all he has to rely on in his new role as a young architect who gets swept into a gruesome plot in the psychological thriller Strangers on a Train,which comes to the Arts Theatre next week.
The star-studded play, which also features Colin Baker, Anita Harris, Emmerdale's Leah Bracknell and EastEnders' Alex Ferns, is based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, who wrote The Talented Mr Ripley. Alfred Hitchcock made the novel into a film in 1951, but the story was treated in a very different way.
"It's a fascinating play," says Will.
"Luckily it's one that will keep us thinking throughout the whole tour and I think it will develop and get better and better.
"I wasn't sure how I was going to feel when I got back on stage after doing TV for so long, but it was surprisingly painless. After doing Strictly Come Dancing, which terrified me so much, it put it into perspective. That was live in front of 10 million people!"
His involvement in the programme that did the impossible and made ballroom dancing cool again was something he did for fun. Since then he has been in high demand for every kind of celebrity event but, alongside TV work (just last week, viewers saw him being possessed by the Devil in a terrifying episode of Doctor Who) he chose to go back to his stage roots.
"It's great to be back in the theatre. I think it's really important for actors to do because it keeps you sharp," he insists.
"I certainly don't buy into celebrity culture, but people are fascinated by it.
God knows why, because it's just soulless and dreary beyond belief.
Once you've been there for a bit, you realise that it's not that exciting.
"I suppose I'm a celebrity in the sense that I've done a celebrity show and I've been on the telly fairly regularly. But I don't go to any of the parties or premieres.
"Keeping your profile high is very addictive because it means you have a better choice of work and you get more money. But it's really good to take those leaps of faith and say, 'No I don't have to be on TV'. As soon as people see more pictures of you at parties and premieres than they do of you working, then they forget you have a trade, and that's always been important to me.
"Although I did Strictly Come Dancing, I didn't cash in on it. I've been asked to do OKand Helloand just recently the nude centrefold in Cosmopolitan. I just said, 'Don't even tell me about it, I'm not interested'.
"I've already been naked on telly - everyone's seen my bum and they don't need to see any more!"
Despite having a great time on the reality show, Will says his dancing days are firmly over. When you're touring the country to packed out theatres six nights a week or filming round the clock for television, it's difficult to find the time.
"No, I've burnt the shoes," he laughs. "When I was doing it I thought maybe it would be a laugh to take it up as a hobby but I don't have any time really.
"I was doing 11 or 12 hour days on Casualty and then I was going on for about four hours at night rehearsing the dances. I think I've only had three days off since I finished."
Being in the theatre again has given him a taste of what it's like when there's an audience in front of you hanging off your every line. And with a role as tense and taut as the ambitious but troubled Guy Haines, he has a lot of work to do.
"In the theatre you need to sustain a performance and be in character for two hours at a time," he tells scene. "People who work in TV a lot aren't used to that because you have short scenes of sometimes 30 seconds at a time.
"In TV there are a hundred other people involved in the end performance.
What you see in the end product isn't just the actor, there's the editing, the lighting and everything else that goes into making you look good.
"But with theatre it is just down to you and the other cast around you. On TV there are a lot of handrails for you and there's lots of people around you. It's ridiculous the amount of people who are there to make sure you're OK.
"In theatre there's none of that. It toughens you up."