~*~DaN~*~
Dan Hunter aka Andy McNair
What made you go up for a part in HOLLYOAKS? I’d started doing a little bit of presenting for The Clothes Show (this was last year) and I got the audition through HOLLYOAKS as I was moving into TV. They said: “Do you fancy doing a bit of acting?” and I said: “I’ll give it a go!”
So how did you feel about taking on the role? Were you nervous about it? Yeah! Really nervous! I hadn’t really watched that much HOLLYOAKS before I started, but I did know James Redmond who was in the show so I’d catch it when I could to see how he was doing. And when I first got here I did recognise a few of the people so it was a bit nerve-wracking.
Do you remember your first day on set? Yeah I do. I got here early morning and it was a scene in the media lab with Sarah Dunn [Mandy], Danielle Brent [Gina] - and Marcus Patric [Ben] was there as well. It was a nightmare, a complete nightmare. They ended up re-shooting the scene because originally when I started I was “Simon Hunter” but Phil Redmond didn’t like the name so he decided to change it to Dan.
Now that Sarah Baxendale [Ellie] has joined, is it weird having to adjust to a new member of the “family”? It is really, because the last one to join out of the group was Catherine Dow Blyton who plays Sally Hunter – and she joined eight or nine months ago so we’ve been together for quite a long time. If you’re working every day with people you do create friendships so I think it’s going to be very difficult for Sarah to get in there. But, I’m sure she’ll be OK. Everyone here is easy to work with, so I just wish her well.
With the diabetes aspect of Dan’s character, do you have to do any preparation for playing him? I did a bit of research in the sense that a friend of mine’s girlfriend has diabetes. She talked me through the different stages – the pinprick test and checking your blood levels. I read up on it – but a lot of the reading material I got was to do with the medical side of it, which can only help so much. So the best thing as far as I was concerned was speaking to this girl.
Do you remember the first time someone asked you to sign an autograph? I do, yeah. It was in a record shop in Bolton and these two little girls were running behind me and they were nudging each other saying: “Go on! Ask him - ask him!” And one said: “Excuse me, are you on HOLLYOAKS?” and I said: “Yeah”. So she then shouted to her mate: “I told you it was OB!” She then asked for an autograph so I signed it “OB”. I let it ride.