Craig Kelly says Corrie's got magic

There's a nice interview with my new favourite, Craig Kelly, who plays lovely Luke Strong, in the Mirror today. He was pretty excited to be walking the cobbles of the venerated Coronation Street and admits it's really got a kind of magic. Now that he's settled in, he's got over being nervous and is stuck in to the work which he's enjoying as it's a different part from those he's played in the past. He says "It's great fun to come in and play an attractive, confident, cheeky charmer." (And that he is!) He's getting recognized more but it doesn't seem to be too much of a problem for either him or his fiancee (the wedding is this summer!) who's used to being with an actor now.

Craig has been in the business for 17 years and his brother is an actor as well. You may recognize him, Dean Lennox Kelly from the recent series Being Human and, before that, as Kev on Shameless! (Wow! Now that I know that, I can see the resemblence, too! This photo is Dean.) His brother was the one that really had the acting bug, Craig's dream was to play football! However, Craig did well in drama school and has never really struggled like some actors.

Craig talks about behing a cheeky schoolboy (I'm not surprised!) and having dull after school jobs but one of his earlier small acting parts was in the blockbuster movie Titanic where he fleeced costar Leonardo DiCaprio for $30 in a poker game...which was never paid! He figures the interest has hiked that amount considerably since then!

Joking aside, another thing you may be surprised to know about Craig is that he's been into kickboxing for some time now and is quite good at it. Sounds like he is a nice fella, not that far from Luke Strong in personality. Let's hope he sticks around to rattle Tony's nerves for a long time to come!

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