Interview: Tough love in action - Kate Marlow, celebrity acting coach

The actress, theatre director and acting coach picked up the nickname from the tabloid press due to her barbed comments as a talent expert on TV reality shows Reality Check and Pop Idol.

But while the likes of Simon Cowell are more than familiar with her put-downs, she has recently been turning her attention away from celebrities towards disadvantaged young people. Since opening her acting studio last year in Manchester, Marlow has been offering young people not in education, employment or training from the Rathbone Centre free courses in acting and body language.

"One of my favourite statistics at the moment is that 97 per cent of communication is non-verbal. That shows how important the way you use your body is," she says. "Some young people come in and see me with their hoods up, not making eye contact and when they sit down they have one leg stretched out pointing at the door. What kind of impression does that give to an employer, a teacher or their friends?

"What I teach young people are some serious home truths about how they look and act. Sometimes it doesn't go down well, but by the end they know what I'm saying will help them."

She recalls how one teenager took particular offence. "One exercise involved us thinking of ourselves as babies. I made a few comments about one particular boy being a baby, just as a joke, and he turned round and said, 'fuck off, you muppet'," she says. "I started questioning him about why he had said that and how such comments show fear, not attitude. It was like the penny dropped, visions of prison and unemployment lay before him and he realised that over reacting will get him nowhere."

Marlow has ambitious plans for using her brand of tough love to help young people across the UK fulfil their potential. She wants to set up communication, acting and body language courses for young people nationwide, but she stresses the idea is still in its early stages with areas such as funding and exam accreditation still to be explored.

Marlow is also offering 20 free places at her studio for talented 16- to 24-year-olds to help them forge a career in acting and the media. But she is adamant that learning about acting is not just about aspiring to be on stage or screen.

"Too many young people think of themselves as worthless, they lash out, get angry. I want to teach them confidence and control, which will help them succeed in what they want to do," she says. "Society is quick to put them down when they do something wrong. But what can we expect if children and young people are not being taught how to behave?"

Working with young people is not new for Marlow. Before training to be an actor, she was a secondary school teacher in Warrington and has been helping disadvantaged young people with acting skills on an ad-hoc basis for a number of years.

Her TV roles have involved Marlow working with many young celebrities. "One show I worked on was Celebrity Wrestling, which Jack Osbourne was presenting," she recalls. "He is from a famous family and appeared on MTV, but that didn't make him a natural presenter. He was really nervous. I remember sitting with him and his leg was shaking wildly. Part of my work with him was to teach him not to show his fears and build his confidence," she adds.

Given this commitment to helping young people, does she still think her scary label fits? "Yes, I'm still scary," she says, "but it I'm not nasty. I'm scary because I tell the truth, people can't hide their emotions from me. They have to be honest with themselves and those around them and that's what really scares people."

BACKGROUND - CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

- Marlow came to acting late, starting her training at the age of 30. She trained at the Science of Acting School in north London, where she is now a coach

- She first started working as a TV acting and communication coach on reality shows in 2002, with a role as a mentor on Channel 4's Faking It

- She has since appeared on more than 20 TV shows, including Model Turned Actor, Hell's Kitchen and Strictly Come Dancing.