danniella westbrook

DANNIELLA WESTBROOK
OCCUPATION: ACTRESS
AGE: 36
SKATING PARTNER: MATTHEW GONZALEZ

“You know, I’m 36 now. I think I’ll leave having all the cleavage on show to the younger contestants!”

EastEnders star Danniella Westbrook reveals appearing on Dancing On Ice will mean conquering one of her greatest fears.

‘I don’t do theatre and I don’t do live shows because I can’t bear them. The idea of going on telly and doing this live is a living hell for me. It’s my greatest fear and on the night of the first show I know I’ll be cr*pping myself. I’m frightened, absolutely petrified of cocking up. You only get one shot at it and if you muck it up, that’s it. So it’ll be a real challenge to get out on the ice and get through it. But to force myself to do this is going to be a positive thing for me, because I really want to conquer this fear once and for all,’ admits Danniella.

‘I’m having a bit of a love-hate relationship with the whole experience so far. What I’m really enjoying is the actual skating and I came out of training this morning at half nine and I’d been there since half six and I felt great. I felt so alive, you know, that feeling where you think anything is possible and I even considered going to the gym straight afterwards because I was so full of energy. But then later everything starts to seize up – my ankles and the balls of my feet are the worst – and I end up lying in a hot bath for ages groaning because everything is aching so much.

‘I was dreading falling for the first time because you think you’re going to hurt yourself and then when it happens you realise you were right – it really does hurt like hell. Especially when you’re going quite fast and when I fall I tend to land quite badly on my thighs and ribs.’

‘When I signed up for this I imagined it was going to be pretty hard work, but Dancing On Ice is harder than any other show because ultimately it’s a completely different ballgame because the people that do this for a living are sportsmen, ice skating is a sport. As an actor or actress you just learn your lines and turn up, give your performance and that’s it. Whereas with this you’ve got to do the dance, skate, perform, remember your routine and most importantly do everything you can to make sure you don’t fall on your backside. It’s really difficult. There’s a lot riding on this, you’ve got to stay upright and the slightest mis-step on your blade could turn the whole thing into a disaster zone.

‘But at the same time I’m in it to learn something new, have a challenge and push myself and just enjoy it. What a great opportunity to learn to ice skate and the best thing about it all of course is to be able to have one to one tuition from Jayne and Chris. It doesn’t get much better than that. To be able to stand there and watch them pull a routine out of the bag, well, it’s an amazing pinch-me once in a lifetime experience.’

After making a highly anticipated return to Walford in September as troublesome Sam Mitchell, Danniella says these days she likes to challenge herself.

‘It was so nice to be back at EastEnders this year and now it feels good to be going from that straight into something completely different that’s also completely out of my comfort zone. Compared to EastEnders where we had a giggle this is pretty intense and everyone at EastEnders thinks I’m a bit crazy doing it!’ she adds, laughing.

So after the doom and gloom of Walford, is Danniella looking forward to the glitz and glamour of the ice rink? She says: ‘To be quite honest glitz and glamour isn’t really my bag anymore. I said to the guy who does the costumes that I want to be quite covered up. I told him I don’t want it all hanging out. You know, I’m 36 now. I think I’ll leave having all the cleavage on show to the younger contestants!’