HOLLYOAKS TO HOLLYWOOD SOAP FAVE TAKES U.S. BY ST ORM
MUSCULAR Ricky Whittle has succeeded where many soap stars fail by becoming a big hit in the US.
And his performances with an American accent are so good that many people back home don’t recognise him.
It is six years since we last saw Ricky as cop Calvin Valentine in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks.
His was a kind-hearted character who cared for his sister Sasha, played by Game of Thrones’s Nathalie Emmanuel. But he went off the rails before being murdered.
The Oldham-born star, 35, won even more fans in 2009 when he and partner Natalie Lowe were runners-up in Strictly Come Dancing.
Since Hollyoaks he has taken Hollywood by storm and not stopped working.
He spent three years in the post-nuclear war drama The 100 and two in the hot romantic US series Mistresses.
And Ricky’s most recent role could not be further from the tangled world of soaps.
He played musclebound Shadow Moon in American Gods, an epic mythical fantasy series based on the books of Neil Gaiman.
The star went through hell preparing for the part and pumped iron beside Rocky legend Sylvester Stallone.
But all the effort seems worth it as American Gods, which also stars Ian McShane, is the most downloaded Amazon Prime show in the UK this year.
Ricky said: “I still see to this day tweets on my timeline like, ‘What have you done since Hollyoaks? and I’m like, ‘Hollyoaks was a long time ago.’
“A lot of people don’t recognise me. I always speak American in my roles, which is confusing for them… he looks like Calvin Valentine but he’s American and he’s got tattoos.”
Ricky credits his ex Carley Stenson, who he met on Hollyoaks, for pushing him to move to the US. He said: “Everything was great in the UK. . I was loving life. But she said go and chase your our dreams. I never looked back.”
Ricky’s y’s most recent success has come at a price. Bulking up to play Shadow was tough. He had to eat 4,000 calories a day then train with some me of the fittest men in LA.
He said: aid: “The first two weeks were fantastic so I ate candy, ice cream, pizzas, burgers, fries, whateverer I wanted.”
But oncence the weight was on all the tasty stuff was cut out and it was dry chicken, brown rice and broccoli occoli and five protein shakes a day.
He said: aid: “It became a chore after a while. It’s horrible.rible. You eat because it’s time not becausee you’re hungry. You are always full.”
Ricky y piled on 35lb and felt the strain on his body y but he was also working out to hone his physiquesique alongside Stallone.
Beasts
He said: “They had me training at Unbreakable akable gym in Hollywood, where Stallone, e, NFL players and UFC fighters train.
“They y basically said, ‘Ricky, go and train with these ese monsters.’
“So fromrom two to four hours a day I’d train with these 300lb beasts and it was a great sports team eam mentality.
“I’d seeee them lifting and they’d look ook at me and say, ‘ Why are you lifting those toyoy weights?’
“So I’d try and keep up with them. I started lifting thehe big weights.
“If it wasn’t for them and thathat spirit of competition ition I’d never have gotot to the size I needed to be.”
So that’s at’s how to get the body y of a god.