I grew up in Wallasey, Merseyside, and started tap dancing when I was 11. I was very successful at it and I won trophies and gold medals when I was in my teens. The only way out of Liverpool really was with humour or with musical talent. I couldn't play anything, so dancing seemed my best option.
I studied dance every day for three years then got my first audition, which was a national tour of The Merry Widow - in powder blue tights! I realised I wasn't really built for classical work and auditioned for the BBC group The Young Generation. I joined when I was 18 and I became its choreographer when I was 21.
The life of a dancer is extremely tough. You have to audition for every single job and you are rejected a great deal of the time. And it's a very short life - like a sportsman's, but without all the money. So my heart goes out to anyone who's captured by dancing. If you want to be a dancer, you've got to be absolutely positive that you're going to put yourself through all that.
My first real step up the TV ladder was to become an associate producer. I worked with Bobby Davro on his series, which was fabulous for me, because I always wanted to direct and that allowed me to copy so many things that were going on at the time: commercials, musicals, videos - because Bobby was an impersonator. That really solidified my love of television. And it led me to be invited to do other shows without dancers.
There was a show called American Gladiators that used to air on London Weekend Television at about 1 in the morning. We turned it into a huge arena event show, with an audience of 7,000 people in the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. And I think that's what really got me noticed. It certainly got me noticed by LWT, who then asked me to become their Controller of Entertainment and Comedy.
You have to dismiss any doubts in yourself in anything you do in life. You can't go into any project thinking, "Oh I'm not going to be able to do this." You've got to go in with your feet on the ground and think, "How are we going to approach this and what are we going to do?" Especially if you're a producer and you're asking an entire team to follow you.
You change your leadership style according to your age and your experience. Nowadays I'm much more amenable to other people's opinions. Although I'm still the same in that if I believe I'm right, you're going to have to come up with a brilliant argument to stop me going in the direction I want to go in!
I learn more from my mistakes than I do from my successes. With my successes, I'm too busy patting myself on the back to learn anything from them! If you don't fail, I don't think you're trying hard enough. You have to be willing to experiment. There are too many people who are willing to follow.
If there was a formula for success, we'd never have failures. But I do believe you have to throw out emotional hooks for your audience: show us who these people are and make us care for them, so we'll follow them and want to know what happens to them.
I went out to see my son in Australia, who was working on a television programme called Popstars. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to buy it. I liked the fact that we saw the auditions, so we saw the good, the bad and the ugly. It was extremely honest in the way it was presented. I bought the format and brought it back to England. With about two weeks to go, we were short of a judge and Claudia Rosencrantz at ITV suggested I step in. And so 'Nasty Nigel' was born. It was all part and parcel of selling the programme. I knew exactly what I was doing. It was me playing a role — a role that has been picked up by many other people since then, of course.
I don't like the term 'reality TV', because the moment you turn on a camera, reality flies out of the window. Everyone becomes a performer.
I moved to LA ten years ago to do American Idol. People are very supportive of you in America, but if you fail, no one picks up the telephone. You ride a wave, but the minute that wave hits the shore, pick up your surf board and get out of town.
Simon Fuller, who created American Idol, said to me, "We've done it with singing, Nigel, now do it with dance, it's your background." I went off to Mexico, wandered down to the bottom of the garden with a bottle of Jack Daniels, and came back with half a bottle of Jack Daniels and the idea of So You Think You Can Dance. I've just been out to Beijing and sold the show there. It's been great to see it travel all round the world, to Canada, Australia, the UK, South Africa, and to see what these countries do with it.
I first met Simon Cowell when I created a programme called Record of the Year for LWT. He would come along representing his company, normally with a record by Westlife, and we often chatted. He was a great talker, with a glint in his eye and a smile on his face. And as tough as nails. He was one of those people who could look you in the eye and say, "This is crap." I'm not surprised by his success. There's an honesty about him that makes people want to hear his opinion. He's half cheeky, half rude, and the public responds to that.
There are still lots of things I want to do. I'd like to do movies, for one. And I'd like to put together the format of a gameshow so if I'm forced at any time in my life to retire, which I doubt unless it's called death, there's a format out there which will make me financially stable for the rest of my life.
The new UK series of So You Think You Can Dance begins this month on BBC1. The latest series of American Idol is currently on ITV2.
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