Holby City’s Paul Bradley and his God complex!

Holby City’s Paul Bradley says being told to take no nonsense was his best-ever bit of character advice.

Former EastEnder Paul plays surgeon Elliot Hope and as part of getting the look right for a heart op scene a real surgeon was on hand.

“He taught me how to do it and when we went through it he didn’t seem that impressed,” Paul told The Sunday Post.

“I asked if I had done something wrong but he said the heart bit was fine. But then he said: ‘Don’t take any rubbish from them. In that room, you are God.’

“It was a really good note that you are the most important person. And as a surgeon you do play God. I’ve always remembered that.”

But there’s a very real indication of mortality for Elliot this week.

Recent episodes have shown him becoming increasingly forgetful, confused and ever more isolated from his team. But Mo provides the inspiration for finally confronting his own worrying medical symptoms.

“He knows there must be something wrong,” reveals Paul. But I think like a lot of doctors they’re not very good when they’re ill.

“It was a bit strange being on the other side of things as it were. We have guest artists as patients every week and like they’d said, I found that when you’re in bed all day you get very sleepy.”

Paul’s dad was a GP and he hopes his character does have some of the best medical traits.

“I’d like to think he was sympathetic. My dad was quite charismatic and I think his generosity towards people made them feel better. That’s something I try to think of while playing the part. I think my dad would have been pleased that one of his family became a doctor!”

Paul has been with the medical drama for nine years, before which he had a lengthy stint in Albert Square as Nigel Bates.

“When I left I found I got offered things that were just different reincarnations of Nigel. That wasn’t what I wanted to do. And I got asked back but I didn’t want to do that either.

“I did theatre when I left and the Oscar-winning film The Pianist, so that helped get rid of the character a bit. But some people still say: ‘Hello Nigel’, which is fine.”

Paul and wife Lynn have two grown up kids, Matty, 24, and Maude, 21, and music helps him relax.

“I’ve been in a band for 25 years, and I play guitar very poorly,” he laughs.