Dancing on Ice: Nile Wilson reveals the 'surprising' talent he's picked up during training

Virgin Radio

10 Mar 2023, 16:36

Dancing on Ice star Nile Wilson has shared the new skill he’s picked up from taking part in the competition, and why it’s “shocked” him so much. 

Nile will join fellow finalists The Vivienne and Joey Essex on the ice for the last time, with all three hoping to impress enough to make it through to the final two. 

Those last two skating couples chosen will then perform the infamous Bolero routine, made famous by judges Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean. 

Speaking to virginradio.co.uk and other press ahead of the grand finale, we asked Nile what’s been the most surprising thing he’s learnt about himself throughout the DOI process, and it turns out the athlete might have caught the acting bug. 

Nile explained: “I can confidently say that I can [act], and I genuinely never thought about this before. I just thought I'm an athlete so let's just get stuck in…but when it comes to performing, I've never had to do that. 

“Gymnastics is creating art with your body, not your emotions. It's not storytelling, skating a routine to music…I feel like I’ve had to adopt some very, very different characters. Robbie Williams is very different to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and very different to...skating to Leona Lewis, to telling the story of my mental health, to all these things that we've done.”

He continued: “I’ve played so many different roles and shocked myself to be honest that I could just adapt to those characters and do a little bit of acting. I've enjoyed learning that about myself and learning that skill. It definitely took some work but I'm now a bit more confident with it.”

For the big final episode, Nile has some seriously impressive tricks up his sleeve to wow the judges and audience, and admitted he’s bringing something “never seen on the show before.”

Nile, alongside skating partner Olivia Smart, shared: “We’re very, very grateful and buzzing to have got into this position. It’s a big change this week from what it’s been because we have learned a lot more and skated a lot more. We've been on the ice for five hours a day in the last two days, which has been a shock to the system to try to learn three routines instead of one.

“We'll get there, we always do. We're really, really buzzing to show you what we've got on Sunday, we've been choreographing these routines. We’re going to bring the competition and also bring things that have never been seen on the show before for sure.”

Dancing on Ice: The Final airs on Sunday 12th March at 6:30pm.