Stephen Beard is about to beome a household name when MTV's new show Living On The Edge launches on 14th October.Based on the O.C and Laguna Beach and will follow a group wealthy teenagers from Alderly Edge as they go on holiday, drive expensive cars as well as deal with everyday teenage issues such as exams and insecurities.I caught up with Stephen when filming had finished to discuss how he got involved in the show and just how far relationships were pushed.

How did you get involved with the show?
Basically a few of the other cast who were members from my old school Manchester Grammar, people like Henry, Oz and Judders, I found out that they were doing the show and then basically I got a call asking whether or not I would like to do it. So I just thought that it would be a great opportunity to go back and see my old friends that I haven't seen for years. But MTV basically set it up with Lion Pictures and Lion Pictures obviously went round Wilmslow asking eighteen years old who they thought would come across all right.
And how keen were you to be a part of it?
The major thing for me was to just see my old friends and share a similar time with all my old mates.

Tell us a bit about the filming process what was it like having a camera around 24/7?

At first it was very nerve racking because when you have a camera in your face and you are having a conversation with a friend you sometimes feel like you can't say what you should say and you can't be yourself. But then after a few weeks, once you get use to it and we got more and more into the show, people became more natural and you just let yourself go, whether that's good or a bad thing I don't know, we will soon see.

And where there times when you had just had enough of them?

Of course you know when things are getting serious and, not emotional, but personal to you, for example in your love life, and you have a camera there all the time I don't know it has a weird effect on a relationship because sometimes it feels like it's not real like your in a soap drama or something and you just wish that the cameras weren't there but it's what I got myself signed up for.

You have been labelled as the bad boy of the show do these labels bother you at all?

They don't bother me I think that there's a misconception as everyone on the show has got a title to who they are you have got Miss Ditzy, Miss Intelligent, Mr Jock and unfortunately I have probably been labelled as the worst one with badboy but it's definitely a misconception. I think that I have been called a badboy because I was rebellious obviously going through school I was just a normal teenage who probably took pranks a bit too far and also I haven’t gone through girls but I’ve been the one who has been in relationships and ups and downs with girls and that is probably why I have been called the badboy. It doesn’t bother me I’m sure people will judge me when the show comes out.

A show like this, which revolves around people with money, does it worry you that people are going to think spoilt rich kids?

Yeah definitely but I don’t think that we are spoilt rich kids, we are obviously fortunate, but at the same time we are educated. Of course there will be critics who will say that we are just a bunch of rich kids doing nothing but on the other hand there are loads of kids around our age all over the country, no matter what situation they are in, can relate to us because we are all going through the same kind of problems like exams and up and owns of friendships so on and so forth. So I’m not to bothered by that spoilt rich kid thing, I know for a fact that I’m not spoilt, I’m just happy and privileged to be were I am.

Do you thing that this show will take away the spoilt rich kid tag?

You know it could do and it couldn’t do there will definitely be people out there no matter how we come across, even if we come across as really nice role models, there will still be some people who will say spoilt rich kids, spoilt rich kids we will just have to wait and se really.

So did you know everyone else involved in the show

Yeah I knew every single member except Charlotte I knew Becky and I met Charlotte threw Becky I was good friends with Henry, I had previously been out with Jasmine and Brooke and I knew tom through barding school.

And how do these relationships alter throughout the series?

(laughs) They don’t alter but there are definitely lots of ups and downs and there is a bit of competition here and their between me and another person, which has been made out as a pure competition but it wasn’t really. But yeah there are lots of ups and downs and lots of drama, a bit too much drama, I wasn’t getting fed up of it but it was tiring with all the drama

Have you any regrets maybe you shouldn’t have done this or said that?

Oh definitely, definitely for me I probably became too natural and just let myself go too early, we haven’t even seen the show yet, so I’m sure there are things that I’ve said things, I hope I haven’t, but if I have I won’t be leaving the house for a week until the next episode that’s for sure.

What do you hope that this show will do for you and what have you got out of it?

Basically for me I want to go into acting, I’m applying for drama school at the moment, so for me it gave me the chance to work with cameras, because I want to go into television anyway, so basically I hope that it will open a few doors for me. It also followed me into auditions to drama schools so hopefully some people might see it and say yeah we will give this guy a crack but if it doesn’t happen I will go through the normal route.

Living On The Edge starts 14th October on MTV One.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

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