February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
He became a household name — and an unlikely sex symbol — in Britain and Ireland thanks to his role in the BBC series “Cold Feet.” And he earned a spot on the covers of the more downmarket British tabloids when news of his extramarital affairs was made public.
Hey, it’s enough to drive a guy to make shoes in Italy. (No, wait, that’s Daniel.)
A lesser man would have whinged and blamed the pressures of stardom for his straying. But the actor, who admitted to cheating on his wife, Sonia, with a secretary and an Irish beauty queen, took full responsibility for his, well, lapse in responsibility.
“I behaved like an eejit,” he said recently. “But I feel that maybe what happened with the tabloids was a watershed. I feel that I’m ready to start the next bit of my life now.”
He recalled an adage often repeated in his home while he was growing up.
“My mother has a saying, ‘You’re one age all your life,’ ” he said. “I’ve always been about 17, which is a bad one to be all your life. . . . It’s time to grow up.”
Adding to Nesbitt’s burden is the knowledge that his family in Northern Ireland is suffering a backlash, thanks to his appearance in “Bloody Sunday.” He has received death threats, while his parents’ home has been sprayed with graffiti.
The one ray of sunshine through all of the turmoil has been his elevation to the level of a sex symbol, thanks to “Cold Feet.”
“I can see why people find me charming,” he laughed. “A few years ago I’d have said, ‘Me, sexy? Get away with you.’ “
“But I’m 37 now,” he chuckled. “You get to the stage where you acknowledge things.” Sounds like Ronan had better guard his posterior prize with his life.