EastEnders’ Ross Kemp glad to get glamorous advert job – before Italian ‘insult’
Ross Kemp was glad to get a job filming a glamorous advert – only to discover they chose him because he’s "ugly".
The TV tough guy was flown to Italy before hitting the big time in EastEnders, where he played Grant Mitchell, hubby of Sharon (Letitia Dean). Ross, 59, said he was feeling “pretty smug” about getting the role for Bacardi alongside beautiful Italian people.
In his new book Take Nothing For Granted, he said: “The director was a lovely American guy called Dickford. And I remember commenting to Dickford, it was strange that they seemed to cast all these British guys in Italian adverts.
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“And he said, ‘We just can’t find any Italian guys who are ugly enough. We need to convince Italians that even ugly people become attractive when they drink Bacardi.’
“I nod along and smile but suddenly I’m feeling a lot less smug about my sex appeal.” It comes after Ross was forced to halt filming his new prison show due to "an incident" whilst interviewing drug gangs.
He had been shooting his new series for Channel 5, Ross Kemp: 72 Hours In…. In the show, the soap star investigates what life looks like behind bars in some of the most dangerous prisons in the world.
But according to Deadline, the notorious 'hard man' has had to stop filming and production of the show has been temporarily halted as conversations are had between Paramount UK and the executive producers of the show. The reasoning for this has been kept quiet, other than the description of "an incident".
The crew were supposedly set to film in Colombia, which would have been filming the show through until Christmas. But a spokeswoman for Channel 5 said: "Filming had begun on the series, but due to unforeseen production challenges, we have made the practical decision to halt filming at the moment".
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Kemp was also looking to visit a number of other dangerous jails across the world. These locations would be based in South America and Asia. Speaking previously about the series, Ross said that he wanted to push the boundaries of what the show could do. Talking to The Sun, he said: "I’ve been to some of the world’s toughest prisons. I thought I’d experienced it all, but this time we’re going even further".
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