Will Mellor: My children have left home and it’s f**king horrible

If anyone had a name that came with a gift for an autobiography title, it is Will Mellor – and turning 50 with a rich tapestry of tales to tell, he decided it was time to unleash Where There’s a Will. The title was apt in more ways than one. “It’s about having the will to get where you want to go in life,” the actor says. “You have to have the belief and not give up.” Mellor was always determined and self-confident enough to know he would have a career on stage and screen. “Sometimes people thought I was arrogant because I would say it out loud. But I always thought: ‘If I can see it and I can say it, it’s possible’.” He grew up on a council estate in Bredbury near Stockport, where his father encouraged him to become a boxer. But there was an ever-present urge to perform. “I wasn’t good academically,” he recalls. “I wanted to entertain people, and that doesn’t work in a classroom, so they thought I was a waste of space. In those days – and still now to a point – performing arts wasn’t a pathway for working-class people. Talent is everywhere, but opportunity isn’t. “Rather than dim the light, they should have supported me and gone: ‘Well, he’s not academic, but he is a performer, so we’ll find a way for that to work’. But they didn’t. They just told me I was a pain in the arse instead.”Aged 12, Mellor found an agent who saw something in him. It eventually led to his big break aged 19 with a role in Hollyoaks, playing Jack-the-lad James “Jambo” Bolton, which in turn led to hit Noughties sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. Since then, he has broken down elitist barriers to win roles in heavyweight dramas including Broadchurch, Mr Bates vs the Post Office and A Woman of Substance – but not before dabbling in a late-90s pop career that turned sour. “I did lose myself for a split second,” he reflects. “I didn’t have people around me that I knew. It was record company people. I had a driver, I had stylists coming to my room with clothes, fans staying outside the hotel. A friend who’d not seen me for a while said: ‘What’s happened to you? You’ve changed’ and it killed me. I’d started to believe in the bullshit a little bit, so I went back home to the estate, stayed with my mum, and got my feet back on the ground.” Will Mellor and co-star Ralf Little on ‘Two Pints’ (Photo: Matt Squire/BBC Two/BBC Picture Archives) The problem was that once you do music, he says, it becomes harder to get acting roles. “I wanted to fight against that, and that’s why I’ve done so many different things. I was worried that, if I do just one thing and that stops, that’s my career over.” Mellor’s first role that came with a hearty dose of kudos attached was in Jimmy McGovern’s The Street, in 2007. “ITV didn’t really want me in it, but the casting director put his neck on the line, and then I had to prove myself,” he says. “You need somebody to take a chance, then it’s on you to deliver. From there, I got Broadchurch. And once my foot was in that door, I wasn’t taking it out.” Mellor considers his ADHD brain to have been integral to his confidence, work ethic and career trajectory. “For an audition, I’ll prepare like nobody else,” he says. “I’ll have studied so I know it in so many different ways. When I read scripts, it’s not hard for me to believe in the fantasy of it all. “My ADHD has made me very creative and I have more energy than most. It means I’ll never procrastinate. You can’t keep me contained. I struggle to sit down for long periods – my dad used to say I was like a fart in a colander.” Will singing with his dad at a family house party A large presence throughout the autobiography, his father died during the pandemic. Mellor wrote about it in a social media post that resonated so much it was shared millions of times. “I was in two minds whether to do that, but people think when they see someone on TV that they’re untouchable, they live in a different world,” he says. “But it’s not the case. My dad was my best mate and my hero. When I lost him, a piece of me went. He was my driving force, my person to look up to. He was my saviour.” This despite the fact his father’s approach to parenting was, at times, brutal. “He was tough on me as a kid, but he did it through love,” he reflects. “His way of parenting came from how he was taught, and that was to prepare us for a hard life. At the time, I didn’t understand. I adored him so, when he was hard on me, it hurt. “I don’t want people to get the wrong idea of my father, that he was this horrible disciplinarian, because he wasn’t. He was a very funny man. It’s just that he had a quick temper, and he was quite handsy; he hit me. I think he thought: ‘If he’s frightened of me, he won’t f*** about.’ And in a way, it worked because I’ve never been in trouble with the police. I was afraid of him, but it was a way of him keeping me on the straight and narrow.” In his later years, Mellor’s father recognised his behaviour had been flawed. “He said he regretted some of his behaviour, but at the time thought he was doing the right thing. He said: ‘Maybe I went a bit far, but I was doing it because I loved you.’ And I know that. He was always proud of me. He was always in my corner.” These days, Mellor lives with wife Michelle McSween, who he met in 1999 performing in the stage musical Oh What a Night! They have been married for 19 years, and are dealing with a newly empty nest, with children Jayden, 22, and Renée, 18, recently leaving home. “I don’t like it,” he says. “It’s horrible. My family is my world; I’m not very good on my own. They’re my reason I get up in the morning. But at the same time, you have to let them go. I try to make sure we have quality time when we can. When we’re together, there’s nothing like it.” Someone he does get quality time with is his former Two Pints co-star Ralf Little. The pair record The Two Pints Podcast and the TV series Will and Ralf Should Know Better, where they undertake challenges from ice-cold swims to driving a tank blindfolded. Will and Michelle on their wedding day with son Jayden “Some people become actors because they’re escaping from who they are because they’re quite shy, but I’m happy being myself. I wanted to do more factual stuff so I could be my own person, and have people get to know me a bit more.” Mellor counts the times they did stand-up comedy and drag on Will and Ralf Should Know Better as highlights. “The scariest stuff is the best – that is when you feel most alive. Stand-up is something I’ve always toyed with. I never thought I’d be a drag queen – being Ruby Rimmington was the most out of character I’ve ever been in my life.” Looking back over the past half-century for his memoir has been like one long therapy session. “I wore my heart on my sleeve and it was cathartic. When you’re on the train going down the tracks, sometimes you need to step off to go: ‘Wow, look at how much has gone on.’ It’s been unbelievable.” ‘Where There’s a Will: My Story’ by Will Mellor (Sphere, £22) is out now