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Lee Boardman plays camp agent Murray Priestman in Drop Dead Gorgeous on BBC3. But you might know him as Timon, Atia's handyman in Rome - or as Jez Quigley from Coronation Street. Geoff Ellis gets an insight into his career.
What was your first TV acting job?
Right after drama school in 1996, I was in Emma on ITV. I was a young suitor and Polly Walker was one of the leading characters. She ignored me. For a week. The next time I saw her, we were naked on a bed in Rome. I like to think that was her payback.
Later, you got the part that people still know you for - Jez Quigley in Coronation Street.
I'd done one episode as Jez Quigley in 1997. Then, two years later, I got the call. At the time I was doing non-acting jobs, working in warehouses in and around doing theatre and telly. When my agent phoned me and told me that I didn't even have to go to Manchester to meet the people up there, they were just going to write me in as Jez Quigley, I kind of knew it was a turning point.
It had a big impact on your life?
It changed everything. Just before my storyline hit the screen, I can remember thinking, 'This is my last day of anonymity'.
Working on Corrie was a catalyst in my life - I met my wife, Jennifer James, who played Geena the barmaid, there. It brought me back from London to the north of England. Now we live out in Cheshire.
Yet you were only in Coronation Street for nine months.
I said I'd do a year maximum but the character's storyline got bigger than either I or the programme-makers had expected. I remember them telling me it would take three to six months for the storyline to come to a crescendo so they could send him away to prison. "No," I said, "I'm not coming back." "Oh, you will," was the response.
It took three weeks of me saying, "I'm leaving and I'm not coming back" before they agreed to kill the character off. At first they said absolutely not. At one point the writers had "Save Jez" T-shirts printed up. But making them kill the character off was one of the best decisions I ever took.
So, you were happy to take the part - and happy to leave?
Yes. It was great, but it came at a price. Afterwards I was only considered for playing lunatic bad guys. I'm still being offered parts as shaven-headed baddies even now. I've been offered three parts in British films in the last month, playing more or less that same part.
Ironically, the Americans who cast me in Rome had never seen me in Corrie. I'm starting to work a bit more in America now, which is sort of where I see the future.
Lee Boardman appears in Drop Dead Gorgeous on BBC3.
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