Take That’s Mark Owen thought he’d end up on ‘Coronation Street’ before he auditioned for the boy band.
The 51-year-old singer’s mother got him to come along to a multi-faceted talent agency because he wouldn’t come out of his bedroom after being left heartbroken when his girlfriend at the time dumped him.
Bizarrely, he ended up learning how to do facials – far from auditioning for the ITV soap.
Speaking to his bandmates Gary Barlow, 52, and Howard Donald, 55, on the first episode of their podcast ‘Life of Take That: This Life’, he said: ‘You know when you put your ‘missing you’ mixtape on and you’re having a bit of a downtime and you’re in your bedroom for about two weeks listening to sad music, thinking ‘I can’t go on’. My mum said to me, my brother and sister, to go and see Nigel, who had an agency that did lots of different things, model casting, acting. We went as a family, probably thinking we might get on Coronation Street. I think [my mum] was mainly doing it to try and get me out my bedroom. Nigel used to do these classes where you’d learn different parts of the industry. I was learning how to do a facial massage or some sort of facial cleansing thing, you paid like two pounds to do these classes.”
The three of them were introduced to talent manager Nigel Martin-Smith and he helped form Take That in the 1990s.
Gary replied: “Massages? We’ve gone from casting to massages.”
Mark went on: “Yeah, but for me, it was just getting out my bedroom. I was learning how to do a facial massage, different things every Wednesday. The lady who was teaching us introduced me to Nigel and he said have you ever sung and danced? Just asked whether I’d be interested in being in a band. And I said, oh yeah great, that’ll be good. And then never heard owt [anything] for about a year.”
A surprised Gary reacted: “Get lost. A year?”
Mark added: “About a year. My dad at one point phoned him and said, ‘Is this still happening,’ and I think spoke to Nigel. I’d not really spoken to Nigel properly and then I got a call two weeks before this was to say come to this club in Manchester, there’s a meeting.”
The ‘Could It Be Magic’ hitmakers went on to become one of the most successful boy bands of all time, selling 14.3 million albums and 12 million singles in the UK alone.
Take That previously featured Robbie Williams, 48, and Jason Orange, 53.
Episode 1 of ‘Take That: This Life is out now’ is available now via Global Player.