Dancing to a new tune: why TV villain’s now taking ‘Johnny be good’ stance

ACTOR Johnny Ward has admitted that his ‘bad-boy’ on-screen image has led to some nasty altercations – including being beaten across the head with a handbag.

He said his main motivation for signing up to RTÉ’s Dancing With The Stars last series had been to shake off his bad-boy image, and to convince the wider Irish public that he is, in reality, nothing like his sinister screen personas.

‘I think an awful lot of people, when they meet me on the street, think I’m going to kidnap them,’ the Love/ Hate actor said of his previous roles, in which he is known to play villains and bad guys.

‘Once, when I went to Cork, a woman smacked me across the face with her handbag.

‘By doing Dancing With The Stars I could for once be myself. I could be a gentleman on the dance floor, as opposed to a weird kidnapper or murderer or something.’

In an interview with TV3’s The Six O’Clock Show, the actor also revealed he was on the verge of quitting Dancing With The Stars following the death of his father, John Ward, 72, who had been battling stage-four cancer.

The finalist recalled: ‘It was really, really difficult... really, really tough.

‘I just remember myself and [dance partner] Emily [Barker] were doing this samba and I got this news from one of my sisters, saying Dad’s been moved to the hospice, and he has two and a half weeks to live.

‘We went up to the hospice and my dad just argued with both of us. He said, “Absolutely no way, there’s no circumstances in which you’re giving up this show. Do it for me. Use me as an inspiration to get to the final.”

‘Overall, if I had my own kind of opinion, I probably would not have stayed in the competition.

‘It was very, very difficult to do. If it was up to me I wouldn’t have continued, and my mum didn’t want me to continue either.

‘But it was my father, and my two sisters agreed with him, and that was the final decision. It was kind of three over two, and especially my father.’

Johnny, pictured with Emily, has also recently revealed he has moved back home to be with his mother after she suffered a heart attack.

The actor will reprise his stage role of Gino Wildes in Copper Face Jacks: The Musical, which runs from July 10 to August 10 at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre.