The standard on this year’s Strictly Come Dancing has been out of this world. And for actor Will Mellor and his professional partner Nancy Xu – who are one of the favourites to lift the coveted Glitterball trophy – it’s "impossible to say" who their biggest competition could be.
"All of the girls are so amazing," Will, 46, tells us of his fellow contestants. "There are so many incredible dancers on the show who are better than me."
It’s this modest nature that has seen viewers fall in love with the star, who has so far danced everything from a Rumba to Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, to an American Smooth in Movie Week.
"You don’t know what the public are looking for," he continues. "They could want entertainment, a great dancer or a great couple. I don’t know what they want but as long as I’m entertaining then hopefully they’ll keep voting for me!"
From the moment he strutted his stuff on the dance floor in week one, Will and Nancy became one of the standout couples to win the BBC One dancing show.
Their first dance, a jive to Ricky Martin’s Livin’ La Vida Loca, caught the attention of the judges, his fellow celebrities and all of us watching at home, too. But, with that, pressure was immediately put on Will’s shoulders – something he says he doesn’t relish.
"It doesn’t sit well with me to be honest, because it adds pressure. I don’t like it," Will tells us as we sit down for a chat with him and Nancy at Big Moe’s Diner in north London.
"I’m not thinking about who’s favourite. I just want to do each dance to the best of my ability for Nancy – and I want my family to be happy. As long as my kids, my wife and my family are happy and proud then that’s enough for me. Anything else is a bonus.
"Of course, we’d love to go all the way," he adds with a smile. "It’s a competition and I’m competitive. I’d love to get to the final so I can say I completed the full journey. I’m going to do everything I can to get as far as I can, but as far as winning goes, that’s out of our hands."
"The aim for me is just for us to enjoy every moment we can," adds Nancy 31.
"For our dance partners this is a once in a lifetime experience so I’m just happy to be with my dance partner and working as hard as we can as a team. We’re just taking it week by week."
As well as receiving great support from the public, Will’s wife of 15 years, dancer and actress Michelle McSween, has been by his side throughout the competition.
"She gives me notes and she looks at me like a dancer rather than her partner,” says Will, who met Michelle when they starred together on stage in 1999 in the musical Oh What A Night!.
"She’ll go, ‘You were great but you need to put your shoulders back or you need to lift your chin up,’ and I’m like, ‘Can you not just enjoy it? I haven’t done this before!’
"She’s very proud of me and she knows I’m outside my comfort zone. She gets me and I get her and that’s why it works."
He continues of their relationship, "I’ve been with her for 22 years and she’s been through everything with me. We don’t live in the public eye.
"When you do jobs like this you’re obviously in the public eye, but we don’t go to hang outs with celebrities, we’re just living a normal life and we have our own little bubble. Our feet are fully on the ground and I don’t take myself seriously. I’m just a dad, a husband and a normal bloke.”
As for whether or not his wife is finding his newfound talent sexy, Will tells us, "Michelle knows full well what I can do with my hips… on the dance floor, may I say!
"My kids find it embarrassing as I do really dance with my hips. For that minute and a half on the dance floor I can be anybody, but after that I’m wrecked. I’m not sexy at all when I get home from dancing.
"I can hardly walk. I’m like Steptoe when I come through the door. She sees me hobble up the stairs and get straight into the bath."
Sharing his injury fears, he continues, "My knees are like a Blue Peter project the amount of tape on them! The last thing I want to do is go out of Strictly with an injury, but my knees are really bad and it’s from football injuries before the show.
"I had cruciate and cartilage ligament damage in my knee and I’ve had an operation, but I’m not using it as an excuse and I don’t want Nancy to make the routines simpler. There are just certain things I can’t do so it’s about managing my way through that.
"We’ve all got ailments and we’re not young anymore, apart from Molly [Rainford] who is 21, she’s the young whippersnapper! I’m not as young as I was but I want to challenge myself. If we’re going to do this let’s do it properly and do the best we can. There’s no point getting involved in something and not giving it your all.”
And the former Hollyoaks actor is doing just that by also working hard to avoid any injuries. "Every day I have a soak with Epsom salts and muscle soak and I ice my knees as much as I can," he says.
While Nancy is mindful not to push her partner too far during their gruelling training sessions.
"If I can see he’s in pain or he can’t handle any more, I will let him rest," she says. "I’m not a cruel teacher! When you haven’t danced before, this show is a big challenge. As pros we’re used to it because we’ve been dancing since we were kids, but for them the dance muscle they’re using is totally different to the muscles you use in the gym.
"I do want to push, but I know there are moments when maybe your body can’t do it and when you want to do well you could push too much and that’s the danger. We don’t want any injuries."
The Chinese dancer and Latin specialist tells us that the pair’s training schedule changes every week, but the one thing that remains constant is that they put in "as many hours as we can".
"We have a different plan each day," she tells us. "On Mondays we have to learn the whole routine and then by Tuesday we always give the director take and do the routine with the music, so we have to have finished the whole routine and it doesn’t matter how it looks. Then Wednesday and Thursday is polishing and Friday we’re in the studio, so we don’t have time to rehearse it that much!"
And although the competition seems to be taking its toll on Will’s body, he has also seen some benefits. "Nancy said to me the other day, 'You now have two abs!'," he says, before Nancy adds with a laugh, "It’s four now!"
But Will says he’s aiming even higher on the abs front. "I’m looking for a six-pack as when I started this I had bit of a keg, but I don’t want a keg any more. I’m getting fitter every day," he adds.
Will partly signed up to the show for his mum Shirley, who was front and centre in the audience for his American smooth routine in Movie Week. "She’s my queen," says Will. "It’s her favourite show and she was on the phone crying after week one, so the pressure was on when she was there."
Will’s family tragically lost his dad Bill in 2020, two weeks after he was diagnosed with cancer, and Will says the "horrible time" changed his outlook on life.
"My mum has had the worst few years ever," he says. "Since losing my dad she’s been on her own and she’s had such a tough time. I just want this to be such a special time for her. She needed some joy in her life and something positive to look forward to and that was one of the reasons I wanted to do the show. She is loving it and it’s the least I could do for her.
"No matter what happens with this journey, no one can take away the moments from me of having my family there and seeing my daughter happy in the audience. That made me so emotional and that’s what I live for as my family mean everything to me. I don’t know where I’d be without them.
"Losing my dad taught me that life is too short. I know it’s depressing, but we don’t know how long we’ve got. You suddenly have to start saying yes to things and grab life and do things that scare you. It’s showed me that when something really bad happens, you can come out the other end."
Will, who has also starred in Coronation Street, had been approached to take part in Strictly for years and had always said no to the opportunity. But he says the death of his father led him to sign on the dotted line.
"I’d been asked a few times and my agent didn’t even tell me every time because I’d said I wouldn’t do anything like that," he says. “I was just a bit worried about putting myself out there in case it got in the way of my acting career.
"Some people say if you do these types of shows you won’t do as much acting-wise. I was doing a lot of dramas and the drama departments were saying, ‘Don’t do any of these shows.’
"But times have changed now and I think it’s opened up. I’m at an age where I just want to do things that make me happy and losing my dad has made me want to grab every opportunity."
And every time he does step out in his sequins on Strictly, Will is holding his dad close. "I wear his ring every day for every performance," he explains. "I always have a little moment with it before I go on and dance. It means he’s with me. He gave me the confidence to go and do this.
"When I was a kid he was always saying, ‘You can go and do it,’ and I came from somewhere where no one did what I wanted to do. I was from a working class family and I grew up on a council estate, but he and my mum made me believe in my dreams."
The star, well known for his role in Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps, adds, "I was always worried about losing him. We were like best mates and we went everywhere together.
"He lives in me now and whatever I do, I do in his name. I know he would be so proud of me."
Someone else who is proud of Will are his children, son Jayden, 18, and daughter Renee, 14. His stint on Strictly has become the talk of the town at Renee’s school.
"People talk to her about it all the time and the teachers have told me they’re putting me in the newsletter every week," he laughs.
"The kids are very proud of me and for me the fact that doing the show makes them happy is everything. My sister also has a café called Mellors and they have ‘Team Will’ T-shirts with Strictly 2022 on the back and all the staff wear them. They encourage everyone who comes in to vote for us."
While his friends and family couldn’t be more proud of him, Will is the first to admit that he’s still rather hard on himself when it comes to his performances. This was evident in week two of the competition when his salsa didn’t go to plan and he apologised to his children for his mistakes.
"I’m a perfectionist with everything, but with that I just had a mental block," he says. "My mind went totally blank and I did a move wrong, but Nancy saved me and I got it back. In my head it was awful but when I watched it back it wasn’t as bad as I thought. But at the time it was a horrible feeling as I just want to do my best. I do need to learn to be a bit easier on myself."
"As we’ve got to know each other, I knew straightaway he was going to be so harsh on himself," explains Nancy. "I knew he’d be stressed but that’s the last thing I want to see happen as I want him to have fun and not be too hard on himself. He smashes it every week on the dance floor and I’m so proud of him."
Will’s jive was so impressive in week one that some viewers were claiming the actor must be a "professional trained dancer" on social media.
"I’m not even a trained actor!," he says. "So to say I’m a trained dancer is a joke. It’s laughable. I think because of week one people are surprised, but I was surprised myself. I just went for it.
"People want to try to find fault and say I shouldn’t be in the show, but you’re always going to get people saying silly things and I take no notice of it as I find it hilarious."
We can’t wait to see the dizzying heights Will and Nancy might reach in the competition but, regardless of where they finish, it’s clear they will have each gained a good friend.
"The first time we met each other we just clicked and I adore him," says Nancy.
"I absolutely adore this girl," agrees Will. "Her energy is pure fire and she’s fun and I want to protect her. She gives me everything. I know her more than most people now and I know how hard she’s worked to get to where she’s got to. She’s an absolutely beautiful person inside and out and I’m chuffed I’ve got her. We spend so much time together and if we didn’t get along this process would be so hard."
Strictly Come Dancing continues on Saturday, 6.30pm, BBC1
