Yahoo News Hollyoaks star Jeremy Edwards has quit acting for good to become a teacher
The soap star has parted ways with his celebrity agent to focus on his new career path.
Jeremy Edwards has revealed he has retired from acting for good to become a drama teacher.
The 52-year-old Hollyoaks star - who made a return to the E4 soap as Kurt Benson in 2020 - admitted he has struggled as an actor for many years, and after finding a new career teaching young people he has parted ways with his celebrity agent to focus on his new path.
Edwards told The Sun: "There are so many reasons why you can be out of work and I thought, this is so unpredictable and I have a family. I thought I've got thirty years of experience here, what am I doing?
Read more: Jeremy Edwards: Second COVID lockdown destroyed me
"I could be helping people. So I started doing some classes with people helping them with scripts and speeches and then it slowly developed into a business and now I work with various groups and I'm teaching kids in Hampshire.
"Sometimes I do five or six classes a week. Sometimes I will only do one or two."
The soap - who is father to six-year-old Scarlett and two-year-old Theodore - revealed he started to think about transferring his skills in a new direction during the coronavirus pandemic and admitted with the actor's strike in America there is even less opportunity to find acting work.
Edwards revealed his mother is a teacher and he has helped assist in her classes.
He said: "We are giving kids confidence which takes them forward in life. I'm not just teaching. I'm helping people...
"We are giving kids confidence which takes them forward in life. I'm not just teaching. I'm helping people."
Edwards's Hollyoaks character Kurt Benson was written back into the soap in 2020, despite having previously been killed off, and had hoped it would be a successful comeback to the soap which made his name.
He said previously: “I was supposed to be there for six months to a year, but COVID impacted that massively. They brought me in, which I thought was a mistake because it wasn’t what I thought it should have been. There was so many restrictions with filming that I couldn’t go near anyone and I only had one storyline.
"I was in and out in less than three months with the promise that they’d bring me back properly when things calmed down but I haven’t heard anything."
The actor rose to fame as Benson in Hollyoaks when the teen soap began in 1995. He left in 1999 and his character was 'killed off' later the same year when his sister was told he had died ina jet ski accident.
Edwards went on to play healthcare assistant Danny Shaughnessy in Holby City.
The actor also took part in reality shows Celebrity Big Brother in 2005, Dancing On Ice in 2009 and Celebrity X Factor in 2019.
Read more: Hollyoaks' Jeremy Edwards "never thought" his character Kurt Benson died off-screen
Edwards famously dated S Club star Rachel Stevens in the early noughties, and they were engaged before they split.
He married his wife Lydia Metz in 2009.
Watch: Hollyoaks' latest soap gossip
