Ryan Thomas has said he can see his daughter following in his footsteps in the entertainment industry and that performing is “in her blood”.
The former Coronation Street actor and his ex-partner, Corrie actress Tina O’Brien, welcomed their daughter Scarlett in 2008, and he said he would not worry if she wanted to become an actress in her own right.
Thomas said: “Scarlett can make her own decisions in life. She’s already making them herself at the moment, but Scarlett is her own person and no one will be telling her what she wants to do or what she has to.
“But I can certainly see her wanting to go down the entertaining side of life, as she just loves it.
“She loves musicals, she loves singing, she loves dancing, she loves acting, and she’s constantly doing it. It’s in her blood, I don’t know where she gets it from, but hey!”
Thomas, 33, will make his debut in Australian soap Neighbours on Monday in an hour-long late-night special episode as English tourist Rafael Humphreys, a loner with dark secrets and a score to settle.
Having previously cut his teeth on the Manchester-based ITV soap playing Jason Grimshaw from 2000 until 2016, he admitted it was strange working on another serial drama, but largely because of the differences in filming.
“The biggest difference is, OK, it’s a lot smaller as they only have 30 cast, which I really like,” he said.
“I think in (Corrie) we had like 70, maybe more sometimes, so this is half the cast. I love that because you have a real familiarity with characters, so you can always know who you’re going to see.
“In Corrie, sometimes, you won’t see a character for six weeks and you won’t bat an eyelid, but in Neighbours you’ll see the same characters all the time.”
He added that is “a lot easier to remember names” on the set of Neighbours, and that, overall, production is on a “smaller scale”.
Five shocking stories. One unmissable hour. #NeighboursHitAndRun will be shown on @channel5_tv on Monday 12th February at 10pm. #Neighbours pic.twitter.com/65WIzigFQs
— Neighbours (@NeighboursTV) February 5, 2018
Thomas said that working in the Australian climate was also a bonus, and that it was a “magical experience from start to finish”.
“I was so excited to put my feet onto the Neighbours set and it was everything I imagined and more,” he said, of arriving on the set of the soap’s Ramsay Street.
Thomas, who will appear in 18 episodes, said he could not imagine working on another soap after Corrie, other than Neighbours.
He said: “I wouldn’t want to go to another soap, because my heart is in Corrie, but it was so nice to go over to Neighbours.
“That’s the only one for me that I can cross over from. I know people have done it before in the past, but it just doesn’t feel right going anywhere else, but across the other side of the world.
“This is the only way it could work for me.”
Thomas’s debut will air on Neighbours on Monday, 10pm on Channel 5.
Neighbours airs Monday to Friday on Channel 5 at 1.45pm and 5.30pm.