Former Hollyoaks star Paul Danan has told how he ended up fixing phones for a living when the acting jobs dried up.
The actor found fame when he joined the Channel 4 soap as Sol Patrick in 1997. He left in 2001, and has now told MailOnline that he made the decision as he “didn't want be typecast” in his soap role and also wanted to go to Los Angeles and try to launch his career across the pond, which he did.
He went on to other acting roles and a few stints on reality TV shows such as Celebrity Love Island and Celebrity Big Brother. But he has also been through dry spells when he has had to take non-acting jobs to pay the bills.
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Paul told MailOnline: “I worked in a place called I Smashed It, which is where if you if you drop your iPhone or your phone and the screen smashes, then we'll fix the screen for you. I was working there for a bit, probably about 10 years ago. And that was just to get a bit of money on the side.”
The 46-year-old has also had jobs in recruitment, in markets and in clothes shops. And the star – who now runs a drama school called Morning After Drama – said he does “struggle sometimes because I'm not on the telly all the time”.
“You don't know when the next gig is coming, and hence the reason why the reality shows, some of the time I said yeah, because I needed to pay bills,” he said.
The star actually did two stints on Celebrity Love Island, which was the precursor to Love Island and saw 12 celebs spend five weeks on an island in Fiji. He did the show when it was launched in 2005, then returned for its second series the following year.
However, he has now admitted that his appearance on the dating programme may actually have had a negative impact on his acting career.
Paul said that after he had been on the show casting directors “were a bit snobby” and he found that they didn’t necessarily want to cast someone from a reality series in their programmes.
“It wasn't good for my acting career and it took a long time to get that back,” he admitted. “I don't know if it's even fully redeemed even all these years later.”
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