Nick Pickard has lost his sense of taste.
The ‘Hollyoaks’ actor used to be prominent in the kitchen – like his alter-ego Tony Hutchinson – but he was forced to ditch cooking in favour of doing DIY in his spare time, because he can no longer differentiate between various foodstuffs after an operation.
He said: "I loved cooking as much as Tony does, but a few years ago I had an operation and lost my sense of taste."
But Nick’s love of home improvement is a bonus for the cast of the Channel 4 soap.
He said: "I’m into my DIY now, I built all Jess Fox’s outdoor decking for her the other week."
While Nick has thrown himself into building and fixing things of late, he wasn’t so keen to literally chuck himself out of a plane for a ‘Hollyoaks’ stunt – and still remembers being terrified.
He said: "Years ago, Tony did a parachute jump – and it’s the only time in my life that I’ve thought, ‘I genuinely don’t know if I can do this.’ The only thing that made me jump out of the plane was the thought of all the grief I’d get from the crew for chickening out."
While he has been on the soap since the show’s first-ever episode in October 1995, Nick still gets "a buzz" when he goes into work in the mornings.
He added to Inside Soap magazine: "Myself and Alex [Fletcher] were shooting a scene today and she said to me, ‘Your concentration levels are terrible.’ But you know, I still get a buzz when I come into work. Even now, I appreciate how lucky I am."
Nick Pickard has lost sense of taste
