Tina Hobley has revealed how she turned down some of the nation’s biggest shows to avoid a Holby repeat.
The 42-year-old actress walked away from the medical drama late last year after 12 years playing Sister Chrissie Williams.
And she’s told The Sunday Post that she’s rejected major roles hinting that even big soaps have come calling in an effort to ring the changes.
“It might be madness but I said no because I want to learn something different,” confides Tina, one of the big names in the final week of heats of Celebrity MasterChef.
“I want to stay clear of the path of leaving a big show and going into another that’s quite similar. It’s easy to jump back into something you’ve been doing already.
“There are a lot of shows that would have been very similar, too pretty. I want something that’s more gritty and not glamorous.”
What Tina also almost turned down through a lack of cooking confidence was the BBC’s culinary phenomenon. But she confesses that, terrified though she was, she’s delighted she took part.
“I wanted to gain a little bit of power back in my kitchen,” says mum-of-three Tina, who’s married to PR guru Oliver Wheeler.
“My husband does all the cooking. He loves it and when I’d be upstairs putting the kids to bed he’d be downstairs with a glass of wine preparing dinner. My grandmother was a lovely home cook, nothing fancy but really tasty.
“I used to love being in the kitchen but when I met Oliver I stepped back. I’d make everything in the house look pretty and be the one walking round filling up people’s glasses. I lost all my confidence.”
Home rehearsals saw teenager Bella, from her first marriage, and younger kids, Olivia and Orson, get more than a taste of what was coming up.
“The first challenge is to cook something you are happy with and Bella must have had my dish about 49 times,” laughs 42-year-old Tina.
“But she was complaining the other night that she hadn’t seen any of my MasterChef skills recently.”
Tina says she’s got her kitchen confidence back and now enjoys sharing meal making with Oliver. But getting there saw her nerves shredded by hosts John Torode and Gregg Wallace.
“The thing I remember most is them saying I looked absolutely terrified,” admits Tina.
“It was like the pressure of being back at school doing my A-Level exams.”
Tina is joined this week by Kiki Dee, Jason Connery, Charley Boorman and Christopher Biggins before the nail-biting semi-finals begin next week.
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