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Hotel Babylon
Starts Thursday 19 January at 9.00pm on 91Èȱ¬ ONE
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Max Beesley plays Charlie Edwards, Deputy Manager
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Some would say that Max Beesley, at the age of 34, has already lived two lives and juggles two very successful careers - one as a musician and the other as one of the UK's most sought-after young actors.
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"I messed around in school a lot, trying to impress the girls and make them laugh while they were the ones laughing at me about to fail my A-Levels – almost, but not quite!" he muses.
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"I am incredibly ambitious now and still have nightmares where I dream I am taking all my exams between the ages of 11 and 18 in one week and haven't done enough work.
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"So now I have this weird OCD with anything I do and an almost blind ambition with everything I do – I just want to do things well. I get a kick out of working very hard and making things happen."
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Beesley admits that this is most likely to do with his upbringing.
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"My dad is a grafter yet an artist and my mother was an absolute survivor who worked hard all her life. We didn't have much dough when we were growing up but we never wanted for anything. Things like central heating we didn't have at all but it wasn't like a 'woe is me' struggle all the time because Dad looked after us really well."
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Later, Beesley, at the age of 11, obtained a scholarship to study musical training at Chethams School of Music in Manchester, followed by London's Guildhall School of Music.
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"My upbringing and childhood definitely helped to mould a nice amount of compassion and warmth in my heart and, especially in the area I grew up in (Burnage), it could have gone the other way. It was a working-class life and upbringing but I was fortunate to have artistic parents who could help channel my skills towards other things."
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Max was three when he picked up his first drumsticks and can play piano, drums and percussion well - but humbly admits that he could probably do alright on most instruments.
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"At college we were trained classically, performing in shows, orchestras and in plays etc, but although I found acting easy, I didn't have much interest in it and my drama coach used to say that I just moved around a lot," he declares.
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After a stint at the Guildhall, he joined Paul Weller's band as a session musician and went on to perform for the next six years with musicians including The Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, George Benson, George Michael, Chaka Khan, and Take That - but it was his father that was to play yet another pivotal role in shaping Max's future.
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"I was back in Levenshulme in Manchester from being off somewhere on the road and my dad showed me Raging Bull one night and it changed my life - I decided there and then I wanted to be an actor.
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"So I phoned someone I'd met at the MTV awards who knew De Niro and coaxed her to find out who his acting coach was. I then rang Sheila Grey in New York and said I was doing theatre on Broadway and asked if I could have a class with her and that was that.
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"I flew out there for a year and spent all my money. I did 'fess up to her about halfway through the course, which she took very well – I think she knew all along," he adds.
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When he got back from New York he ended up in Shepherds Bush eating tuna, rice and mayo for about a year, before landing a role in the 91Èȱ¬ drama Tom Jones, which heralded the beginning of his film career - though he admits to it being a difficult time.
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"Everyone wanted to do films at the time and I got caught up in accepting movie after movie and did about 13 in a row that went nowhere," he explains.
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"It was a really worrying time so I sat with my agent and discussed a plan of action - which was to focus again on television drama, since there was so much good work out there - and that was that. Bodies came around and that was really the start of it for me."
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He is optimistic about a second series of Hotel Babylon and was overwhelmed by the success of both series of Bodies.
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"What I loved about Bodies is that it is right-in-your-face drama. It is not just another medical show but instead is scary, tough and challenging television.
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"Babylon on the other hand is fun and entertaining and like nothing we have seen on television before. Charlie introduces the audience to the hotel and in a sense is the character that carries the viewer through the series."
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Having travelled the world and lived the rockstar life for six years, Beesley is keeping quiet about his experiences of staying in five-star hotels.
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"Let's just say I've seen a few television sets go flying, but I can't tell you who was behind or in front of them," he laughs. Ìý
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