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"That Mitch Hewer is a bit of a dark horse, you know. After graduating from Skins earlier this year, the young actor landed a part in ITV&amp;#039;s big new musical drama Britannia High (and spent some time revealing an entirely different side of himself, but that&amp;#039;s not for here). The new role is squarely in &amp;quot;triple threat&amp;quot; territory, requiring Mitch to act, sing and dance. How equipped was he for the challenge? And what on Earth is the deal with that curly new hairdo? We gave Mr Hewer a call to find out. What&amp;#039;s Britannia High about? &amp;quot;Britannia High is this new, edgy series which follows the lives of seven kids, their friendships and the troubles they go through at stage school. There&amp;#039;s a live episode at the end of the series, which has never been done before. I think it&amp;#039;s totally different from High School Musical, Fame and that era of dramas.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s your character, Danny, like? He&amp;#039;s very different from Maxxie... &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s a lot different from Maxxie! Danny is very much the charmer, the ladies&amp;#039; man of the school, the joker. He&amp;#039;s an all-round talent and a very accomplished musician who plays the piano to a very high standard. But he does have a problem which threatens his future at Britannia High, and it&amp;#039;s the last thing that any of the students want because they&amp;#039;re all there to be the best. You find out in episode two what it is.&amp;quot; There are lots of song and dance numbers in the show. Are you a natural dancer? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve tapdanced since I was 11 years old. I always wanted to be a tapdancer and that&amp;#039;s all I ever wanted to be. I never dreamed of being an actor! [Acting] just kind of came along, which was a bit surreal for me.&amp;quot; You had a big dance number in a church in Skins. Do you think that swung you this role? &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t really know. Some people could say that. The only thing I know is that I auditioned like everyone else did and I prepped just as hard as everyone else had to prep. I guess the part of Maxxie in Skins meant I had a profile already, but I still had to have a seven-hour audition with Arlene [Phillips], which was quite tough.&amp;quot; And is it you singing in the show too? &amp;quot;Yes, it is. I never trained in singing, although I happened to go to a college in Bristol called SWADA (South West Academy of Dramatic Arts) when I was 16. But to me training is when you go to London and train.&amp;quot; What do you make of the comparisons to High School Musical? &amp;quot;I feel Britannia High is aimed at an older audience than High School Musical. Britannia High is more of a serious drama, with the music and dance on top. Also we have a reason to go into songs, because we&amp;#039;re at drama school.&amp;quot; Were you happy with the way things ended for Maxxie on Skins? &amp;quot;Well yeah, I guess so. It was quite a nice ending, going to London. I had an amazing experience doing Skins. It was the first acting I&amp;#039;d ever done in my entire life, so I had to learn on set for those two years. I had to keep my head screwed on and learn from the other cast.&amp;quot; Have you stayed in touch with the cast since filming ended? &amp;quot;No, unfortunately I haven&amp;#039;t. I guess we&amp;#039;ve all gone our separate ways. I don&amp;#039;t know if they see each other but I&amp;#039;m in Manchester so I&amp;#039;m quite far away from where I originally live. I don&amp;#039;t know if they&amp;#039;re working now. I haven&amp;#039;t got a clue.&amp;quot; Was it your choice to overhaul your hair for Britannia High? &amp;quot;It wasn&amp;#039;t my choice but I think it&amp;#039;s good for me as an actor to completely change my look. I don&amp;#039;t want to get stereotyped through my blonde hair. Maybe I&amp;#039;ll do a film next time and have crazy make-up on!&amp;quot; What are your career ambitions for the future? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d love to be able to do a really good English movie. My dream is to go to Hollywood and see what happens over there. All I can do is work really hard because I&amp;#039;m sure there&amp;#039;s someone out there who has the same level of enthusiasm as me and can do the same stuff as me, if not better. I have to give it everything I have to get where I want, which is in LA doing Hollywood blockbusters.&amp;quot; Britannia High starts Sunday at 6.15pm on ITV1. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/interviews/a133096/mitch-hewer-britannia-high/>