With a new actor now occupying the role of Nick Tilsey, the Coronation Street part that shot Adam Rickitt to fame, the honorary Kiwi reveals he’s finished with the fame game. The actor, pop star and political hopeful says he now longs for a more settled life as a family man.
“If I don’t take a break from acting, I think I’ll self-destruct,” laughs Adam, who spent four years playing bad-news barman Kieran Mitchell on Shortland Street before returning to the UK.
Though he’s performed in two plays and a Hollywood film since he left our shores the blond star says the celebrity circus in the UK has put him off the profession.
“There is so much bulls–t in the business here,” explains Adam (33), who supplied the Weekly with sizzling photos from his latest photoshoot. “It’s not about acting it’s all about being a celebrity. one TV series approached me and offered me a lead role but said they wanted me to do celebrity Dancing on Ice first to raise my profile. I didn’t get into this business to do that sort of thing. To me, Shortland Street was the most fulfilling and enjoyable thing I have ever done, and everything after that just seems a bit second-best.”
When the star was caught up in a car accident recently, and lost several teeth after his head hit the dashboard, he took it as the sign he had been looking for. “It felt like nature’s way of saying, ‘Right, it’s time to stop doing the acting for a bit because you can’t do anything without any teeth,'” jokes Adam. “My agent’s still phoning me every day with jobs and he’s pulling his hair out because I don’t want to do them right now.”
Since he’s been home, Adam has also released a hit single, Tonight, which reached number two in the UK dance charts last year, but the music business has also left him disillusioned. “My manager was trying to push my music in a direction I didn’t want to go, by making it this very camp disco style,” explains the singer, who caused a stir when he performed in his underwear at famous London nightspot G.A.Y.
“Then things didn’t work out with my manager so I dropped him immediately but I got caught up in all the legal wrangling and it kind of soured everything. I just knew, in my heart of hearts, it wasn’t what I wanted. Going round doing gigs in clubs at two in the morning when you’re stone-cold sober and everyone else is drunk is a drag. I’m 33 and that’s not what I want to be doing with my life any more.”
Now Adam says he is longing for a more regular, stable lifestyle and has launched his own production company so he can focus on being creative behind the scenes. Away from work, things are also falling into place nicely with the arrival of a new woman in his life who, the star says coyly, might just be The one.
“It’s early days,” says Adam of his relationship with public relations manager Jane, “but it’s going really well.
Now, for the first time in my life, I am getting broody and Jane’s keen as well. I’ve made some great money doing acting over the years, but what I really want is to get married and have kids, and I don’t want to be one of these fathers who disappears off on jobs for months at a time.”
And although music and acting are off the agenda for the time being, a place as a parliamentarian still beckons.
“I’m in two minds about it,” says Adam, who performed at the British conservative party’s official gay rights night, Conference Pride, last year.
“For me, politics isn’t just a job, it’s about helping people and improving their lives. What puts me off is that it would mean shutting the door on coming back to New Zealand. I don’t know if I want to do that.
“Since I’ve been back in the UK, I’ve spent a lot of time comparing everything to my time on Shortland Street,” continues Adam, “and nothing has been as fulfilling. My four years in New Zealand were some of the happiest of my life. I don’t know what will happen next for me but I can feel my heart drawing me back there.
“Somehow,” he says with a smile, “I don’t think it will be long.”
