Put the six-pack away and show us your brains.Meet the new, grown-up and sensible Adam Rickitt (he keeps his shirt on now)
Articulate, intelligent, mature.....these aren't words you expect to associate with Adam Rickitt.
Since he first walked on to the cobbles of Coronation Street, he has been labelled a himbo, all floppy blond hair, rippling six-pack, dodgy pop career and the acting ability of a plank of wood. But when he tells you he turned down a place at Oxford to study law to follow his heart and that he walked away from a six-album record deal because he wasn't enjoying it, you feel you should give the guy a chance.
"What I learned very quickly is that people, rightly or wrongly, like to stick you in a pigeon-hole," he says. "As soon as I appeared as Nicky Tilsley on Coronation Street, I can guarantee people thought right, he's blonde and he's thick as a brick."
"You can bang your head against a wall as much as you like but people will still make their own minds up about you. Take somebody like Melinda Messenger. She's a clever girl but because she's done topless modelling and is a blonde, lots of people think she can't count past two. It happens in any industry but particularly this one. You've just got to learn from it and get on with your own thing."
He's just 22 but Adam is in the process of re-inventing himself. The hair has been cropped, the muscles are covered up and his singing is confined to the stage for his latest singing role as the narrator in the lauded musical Rent.
It's a show with a message, telling the story of Aids coming to New York and in particular, the characters in the show. He sings on 36 of the shows 43 songs. It's a major part and a huge test for any actor, especially one who learned his trade on a TV soap rather than treading the boards.
When he won the part of new, improved Nicky Tilsley, he had no acting experience. He went for the part only on the instruction of his manager, Take That supremo Nigel Martin Smith, purely for the experience. "I couldn't quite believe it," he says, still managing to sound surprised all these years later. "It was a pretty steep learning curve and sometimes I look back and cringe. But it was such a good chance and I was learning from the best. There was no way I could turn it down."
His feet barely touched the ground before he was being recognised wherever he went. And before you could say heartthrob he was peeling off his top and being pinned on the walls of countless teenage girls. As a teenager he found the rollercoaster of fame a difficult experience.
"It freaked me out at first,"he says. "I wasn't sure how to deal with it. You can do three things - deal with it, believe your own press and become incredibly arrogant or become paranoid. I became so insecure, I was trying to make sure everybody liked me. You can't do that.
Every time I read a kiss and tell story or a story knocking me, I'd get really hurt and retreat into my shell. But it was only by going through that that you learn to detach yourself from the celebrity side of it. When I read back interviews now it's like reading about someone else."
Adam, left the Street two years ago following the well-worn path from soap to Top of the Pops. Music was his first love and the dream of being a pop star was what prompted him to forsake Oxford and the law for the bright lights. "I knew pop music especially was going to be pretty hollow,"he says. "I wasn't going to put the world to rights. But I thought it would be great fun. You'd be out gigging all the time and going to parties. But the way pop is now it's 99 per cent promotion and 1 per cent product. I would get up at 5am, go to bed at midnight and spend the time in between doing interviews, saying exactly the same things. It was going through the motions 24/7 and it was so boring."
"I got off tour from South-east Asia and the album had just gone gold but I came back and said to Polydor, look I'm just not into this. They could see I wasn't happy and to be honest, there's always somebody else to fill your shoes. It's such a two minute thing. It was a hard decision to make. The money was great and it was a six-album deal so I could have carried on milking it, but I just wasn't enjoying it. I might even still be signed. To be honest, I don't know. It was just left open.
It's much the same with Corrie. Young Nicky was last seen heading off to Canada and the door has been left open for his return. According to some his comeback is imminent. Adam says, "I don't know how it came about but apparently it was announced on radio I was going back. I don't know anything about it. The door was left open but nothing's happening meantime. I'm doing Rent for the next year if things go well. I've also got a couple of films and a TV project to do."
Between dumping his pop plans and starting Rent, Adam took some time off to think about what he wanted to do with himself. He went home to Manchester where he has a close family who supported him through his rise to fame. He's intent on proving himself as an actor though you get the feeling his parents were secretly hoping he'd opt for a career in law.
"I'd never acted in my life and I was going to Oxford," he says. "But on the day I got my A-level results and got my place I said to my Dad I wanted to be an actor. The thing which clinched it for me was he said I can see how much you want it, so go and do it.He's since said he thought I would last six months and when I didn't get a job he would force me to go to university. I think he's still hoping I'll get a proper job."
