HAPPY TO BE A HAM ACTOR

DOCTOR Who star Ryan Carnes knows all about being a pig - the actor grew up on a pig farm.

The Desperate Housewives star has been turned into a porker for the current Doctor Who two-parter, which finishes this Saturday.
In it he plays a strapping suitor to a showgirl who is turned into a pig by the Daleks.
Ryan, 24, laughed: "It's ironic as my father and grandfather raised pigs until around the time I was 10. I used to help feed and call the pigs daily.
"And to make this part even more spooky, I grew up in Pike County, Illinois, which at one time was the "pork capital of the world".
"So playing a pig after working on a pig farm in the world capital of pigs is all very strange."
And the actor, who plays Laszlo in Doctor Who, also revealed he doesn't eat pork, but not because he's just played a pig.
He said: "I gave up pork around the end of last year.
"I filmed Doctor Who last autumn, but it wasn't because I played a pig, only for dietary cleanliness.
"We swine aren't the cleanest barnyard animals, you know."
Ryan is almost unrecognisable from his part of Justin in Desperate Housewives, the hunky boyfriend of Andrew Van De Kamp, who became the envy of men around the world when he got to snog Eva Longoria, who plays Gabrielle Solis.
But his sun-kissed good looks, which have seen him called a young Brad Pitt, were hidden with a pig's nose, saggy pointy ears and tusks, which took three hours in make-up.
He admitted: "That was probably the toughest part of the whole job. Not because I'm too vain, I'm happy to be made into a pig. But it got a bit lonely at times too.
"I didn't really get to see people at lunchtime because I had to be very careful with my pig face. I had to go to my trailer and sit in front of the mirror and watch myself eating so I didn't wreck the prosthetics.
"If the grease or oil from the food got on the edge of my lips it would cause the latex to start peeling off.
"Then they would have to start reapplying it so I had to drink through a straw."
While lunchtimes were taxing, Ryan has nothing but praise for Scots actor David Tennant, who plays the Doctor.
He said: "David was great. He was a gentleman and a pleasure to be around."
The Hollywood-based actor admits he isn't a science fiction fan and only knew about Doctor Who because of a pinball machine.
He said: "I wasn't a fan, but I'd known about it because a friend of mine had a Doctor Who pinball machine in his basement when I was a teenager, so that was my first introduction as an American.
"I can't remember which Doctor it was, but I didn't have to really think too hard about taking the role.
"The series has been around for so long, there's a real history about it."
Because he didn't grow up with Doctor Who and never cowered behind the sofa at the sight of the Daleks, Ryan was very dismissive of the UK's best loved evil aliens.
He laughed: "I watched a couple of episodes before I came over to the UK and I thought to myself 'How are the Daleks that scary? They don't look that scary. They look like dustbins with a plunger and an egg beater for arms. I don't really get it.'
"Then I got on set and one of them rolled out behind me and I got a real fright.
"The guy was moving his plunger arm and his egg beater arm and I was terrified.
"They now send shivers up my spine. Especially when they talk."
Now Ryan is hoping to be part of Doctor Who history and hopes that his character Laszlo will be made into an action figure.
He laughed: "I never thought I would be an action figure, especially as a pig. But it would be amazing to have that.
"I'm a huge fan of Doctor Who now. I gained a whole new respect for science fiction.
"When I was growing up I watched The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, but being part of one has shown me how much energy it takes.
"David has to have a lot of stamina to have such high energy and so much dialogue."
Of course even with his tusks, Ryan is staying mum about what happens in Saturday's episode.
Last week the Doctor and new companion Martha (Freema Agyeman) discover that the four remaining Daleks were kidnapping people in Manhattan during the Thirties and turning them into pigs.
They were also building the Empire State Building and their leader, Dalek Sec (Eric Loren), transformed himself into a human/ Dalek hybrid.
So what have the Daleks got planned in Saturday's episode called Evolution of the Daleks? And will Ryan's character get together with his showgirl girlfriend Tallulah, played by Spooks actress Miranda Raison, despite the swine of a problem?
All Ryan will say is: "The version everyone's going to see is a happier version of what I read in the script.
"The writers decided there was a lot of bad, depressing death-like things going on and wanted to lighten it up a bit."
Doctor Who is on Saturday, BBC One, at 6.45pm.