Jeremy Warren (Nick Rhys)

Former Hollyoaks star Nick Rhys is returning to our screens tonight (October 10) with an exciting new guest role in Holby City.

The actor, best known for playing lothario Lockie Campbell on the Channel 4 soap, has now filmed several Holby episodes as newcomer Jeremy Warren – a grieving man who arrives at the hospital to investigate the circumstances surrounding his mother's death.

Digital Spy recently caught up with Nick for a chat about his new character, life after Hollyoaks and what's next for him.

How did the Holby City role come about? Was it just a regular audition?

"Pretty much! I was actually planning to leave the country at the time, but then I got the audition through my agent. The role spanned over a lovely period of time – seven or eight episodes – and I filmed it over the summer, which fitted in really well with my plans for the year."

What can you tell us about your character Jeremy Warren?

"He's a really interesting character and he actually evolved quite differently to what I was personally expecting at the start. He arrives at Holby in a daze, because he's just lost his mother and he wasn't there when she died. Now he just wants to find out the truth about what happened to her.

"Jeremy strikes up a friendship with one of the nurses on the show and there are hints of it potentially going places, but then he goes on this journey, gets struck down by grief and starts acting out of character.

"It was really interesting to play. With other projects, you can do just a single episode, or you can be there for a few years and your character is constantly in flux. But here, there was a definitive story arc of Jeremy being affected by grief and going down that path. Grief can affect people in different ways, so it was quite a challenge to explore that."

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Does Jeremy have good reason to be suspicious about his mum's death?

"He has very good reason to know something isn't right. There are a lot of things from the off that don't really add up. Jeremy quickly targets Ric Griffin, because he was the surgeon responsible for the care of his mother and the course of action that was supposed to save her.

"The character is quite level-headed when he first comes in, but then he starts to lose his mind a little bit when he clearly sees there was negligence involved. The conflict for him is that he sees these doctors and nurses are under immense pressure and they're really stretched.

"Jeremy understands that at first, but then when he sees that there are some clear steps that could have been taken to ensure his mum's survival, he feels a lot of frustration and grief – and it boils over."

You're clashing with some much-loved Holby characters with this role. Are you worried the viewers might not like Jeremy?

"As with every character I play, I aim to have maybe half the audience sympathise with him and half the audience think he's overreacting and not being fair. Jeremy does butt horns with Ric and a few other people, but I personally want to play the truth of the character and let the audience make their own minds up.

"It's never right if you play a character to be 100% bad or 100% good, or try to be 'liked' as a character. I always like it if you're leaving the viewers to wonder how they'd react in a certain situation. You want to make the audience think."

A guest role on Holby can often mean one episode in a hospital bed! Was it nice to get something a bit more substantial?

"Yes definitely, to get this run of episodes was great. It gave me time to breathe as a character and hopefully bring up a lot of questions and challenges for the ones I was playing opposite. Initially I was only supposed to be there for four or five episodes but then they extended it, which was a nice sign."

Hollyoaks fans are very loyal. Do you hope some of them tune into Holby especially for this storyline?

"I would love that. I'm continually bowled over, even though it's been well over a year since I left Hollyoaks, that the show's fans are still tweeting me and saying how excited they are.

"I'm very lucky to have supporters who know more about what I'm doing than I do! (Laughs.) I don't know where they get the information, but they're very dedicated fans and it's nice to see that continue now that I'm going to be appearing in Holby."

Do you still feel quite connected to Hollyoaks?

"Yes, the fundamental thing is that my girlfriend Anna [Passey, who plays Sienna] is still in the show, so I hear a lot about what happens there, how she finds work and the challenges she goes through.

"Some of my closest friends from the show like Cameron Moore [Cameron Campbell] and Fabrizio Santino [Ziggy Roscoe] have left Liverpool and gone back to London now, but I still see Alfie Browne-Sykes [Jason Roscoe] and James Sutton [John Paul McQueen] who live nearby. We have that shared experience of having been on the show together.

"When you leave the show, its healthy to concentrate on new horizons, but I do still feel connected to it. I actually went to the studios the other day to meet Anna because we were driving to a gig, and it was lovely how many people stopped and said hello to me."

Have you been watching Anna's current storyline, which sees Sienna battling cancer while pregnant?

"Yes and she's doing a brilliant job – she always has done and always continues to do. Anna is an amazing actor and I see how much effort and preparation she puts into what she does. Her storylines as Sienna are obviously very hard-hitting and they pose big questions for the character all the time. I think it's amazing that she's always involved in that big soap drama, but grounds it in a very believable performance.

"Anna has got big stuff coming up in the show, which obviously I'd be killed if I divulged! Just when you think you can't be surprised any more about her quality, she's going to be doing some new stuff that's going to be amazing."

You also worked on the American miniseries Harley and the Davidsons last year. How did it go?

"It was the first step on a very long-held goal of mine to work on American television. It was great to see the scale, the budget and the quality running through every part of it. It wasn't the biggest of roles, but it was hopefully the first step to me pursuing more work over there.

"When I was 19 at drama school, a lot of people were talking about wanting to work at The National or The Globe, but I always said that I wanted to work on an American project. All these years later, it was fantastic to do an American show, which ended up being the highest-rated mini-series on US television last year.

"So from that, now that I've wrapped Holby for good, I'll be hopefully working to the next American role."

So are you busy auditioning at the moment?

"Yes, I'm actually about to fly to Los Angeles. After a lot of work and effort, I got a green card granted over the summer. I thought I was going to be heading over straight away, but then I got Holby.

"You're always loathe to say you'll be doing this or that, in case it doesn't happen! But I'm going to be going out there and I've got a good team of people representing me already. The goal is to push on, to work on an interesting series over there and see where that takes me."


Digital Spy