Cold Feet’s John Thomson on finding peace… and living in the moment

TURNING 50 is often a time to look back and reflect on life’s highs and lows, moments to savour and others to forget.

John Thomson has had all of these, from dizzying stardom to spells in the wilderness, happy family times to the sadness of divorce.

But as he looks forward to the milestone birthday next spring, the Cold Feet star has told iN10 he has no regrets.

“I just see it as life’s passage,” says John, the voice behind new animal series Saving Britain’s Wildlife, just started on Quest Red.

“You can’t shut the door on the past, and there’s no point regretting it as it’s done now.

“I’ve had an interesting life and it’s been a steep learning curve, which I think has worked to my advantage.

“I deal with the now these days, and I’m not boring by any stretch of the imagination.

“I see 50 as just another birthday. I don’t feel that age – I’m 25 in my head. I look after myself, to a degree, and they say 50 is the new 40, so we’re OK then.”

Cold Feet is what John is best known for, playing Pete Gifford, husband of Fay Ripley’s Jenny.

James Nesbitt, Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst play the other Mancunian muckers, with Helen Baxendale the sixth member of the gang, who broke the nation’s heart when she was killed off in a car crash.

It has since made a very successful return, but at the time, the show was the hottest thing on the telly and its six stars much-feted.

“I was a youth when I started, 27, and I’m still the youngest, the baby of the show,” says John.

“We’re older and wiser now and there’s a maturity that gets the job done.

“Jimmy and myself used to paint the town red back in the day. They were rock ’n’ roll days and I loved it. It was good while it lasted.

“Now, as Jimmy very wisely says, we do our socialising on set.

“When we’re reading our lines, we catch up and have a laugh. If you form a bond behind the scenes, it shows on screen.”

The series returned in 2016 and, while many worried whether it could recapture the original spark and warmth, it proved to be a hit.

“We are so blessed to come back and have such success again,” admits John. “Not many people have that luxury.

“There were a lot of rumours about it coming back but I never anticipated it would. We learned from other people’s mistakes. We didn’t want to do a one-off, it had to be a series.

“When the first episode went out, the viewing figures were off the scale and it was the third-highest trending thing on Twitter worldwide.

“I was overwhelmed. I’d been to a private screening with the cast beforehand and thought that we had something really good. Turns out we did.”

John says the second series – like a band’s “difficult” second album – was harder, a slow burn that found its stride.

But he promises the third series, due on ITV this autumn, is a goodie that won’t disappoint fans, with new challenges facing the now middle-aged mates.

One of the big issues dealt with since the return was usually-chipper Pete’s slide into depression as he faced marital and money woes. The sharp script by writer Mike Bullen and John’s sensitive portrayal had a big impact.

“I played it instinctively, but I’ve had dark times and low times and I drew on those,” he confides.

“The more life experience you have, the better you are as an actor.

“It was basically Mike’s story, he’d had a terrible time and I had a duty to him to portray it in the most realistic way possible.

“The most incredible thing for me was the awareness it created. I got awards from mental health charities, and people got in touch to say they’d seen their GP or stopped me to say they now knew what was wrong with them.”

While John reckons he can usually leave a role’s challenges behind him at the end of the day, he admits one storyline took its toll.

It saw Pete help a pensioner he’d befriended, played by James Bolam, try to end his life.

“That day was hard,” admits John. “On top of the depression storyline, I’ve just tried to kill somebody.

“It wasn’t just a case of going to bed that evening and forgetting it – that stayed with me for days.”

While we’re used to seeing plenty of John, we hear him a lot, too.

He’s one of TV’s most reliable voice-over artists, in demand for adverts and narrating documentaries.

Saving Britain’s Wildlife is the latest of those. It’s a 10-part series exploring the work of the RSPCA’s wildlife centres.

It features remarkable, often heart-rending, footage of animals in trouble and the lengths to which the RSPCA’s rescuers go to save them.

Such is the gripping nature of the footage, John sometimes found himself just watching as a viewer in the recording studio, rather than doing his narration.

“In some cases, these poor animals are in distress because of what humans have done, like a poor goose that had a crossbow bolt through its neck,” he says.

“And there’s an eco message, too, with their plight being because of what we’re doing to the planet.”

What John says are seen as his “posh Manc” tones, his warm delivery has long seen him lend his voice to projects.

And pre the lucrative Cold Feet return times – he also split from wife Samantha, with whom he has two daughters, Olivia and Sophia, a couple of years back after a decade of marriage – that work was more than welcome.

“The hungry years were 2012 and 2013,” he admits. “I was only getting sporadic work as a jobbing actor. The voice-overs kept me ticking along.

“I went out to Los Angeles and that didn’t really work out.

“I subsequently worked with Catherine Tate and she said to only go if you’re invited. I wished she’d told me that before!

“But while it wasn’t a successful trip, I took the time to look at my situation. I got a new agent, and that’s worked.

“Everything happens for a reason. And staying positive is really important.

“I try to get as many strings to my bow as I can, and am still getting them.”

While things are looking very good for John now, he’s never forgotten his early days and the role Edinburgh played.

“It was massively important,” he adds.

“I met Steve Coogan at drama school and we took the stuff we were writing to the Edinburgh Fringe in 1992.

“We used to drive a VW Golf with a lectern and projector for our slides.

“The Fringe was a huge turning point in our careers. We got the Perrier Award and things rolled from there for me – The Fast Show, Men Behaving Badly, Cold Feet and everything else.

“I have huge affection for it and while I haven’t been back to perform, I’d love to get time to go back and watch.”

Saving Britain’s Wildlife, Quest Red, Wed, 7pm.