I was an EastEnders heartthrob – fans loved my topless scenes but now I’m juggling TWO normal jobs
SURROUNDED by blood, scales and bones, the life of market fish porter Tony Discipline couldn’t be further away from the glamour of showbiz.
But in 2011, everything changed forever when he landed the role of heartthrob Tyler Moon on EastEnders.
During his two years on the BBC show, his storylines saw him embroiled in a love triangle with Shona McGarty‘s character Whitney and nearly suffering a fatal seizure after a boxing match.
This month marks 10 years since Tony left the soap – and recently fans were shocked to discover he’s now juggling two jobs.
The actor, 34, now works as a firefighter and a barman – and tells The Sun he couldn’t be happier.
“I love it,” he says of his job in the fire service. “Every day is different and you feel you’re helping your community.
“It can be quite dangerous but you’re trained to deal with those situations.”
Tony grew up on a council estate in Gravesend, Kent, and his first job was at his dad’s market stall.
While he had no interest in drama at school, he says working on the stalls was “like a theatre in itself”.
“You’re there upfront selling things – maybe that gave me an interest subconsciously without me knowing,” he recalls.
At 17 Tony landed an apprenticeship with BT but realised he “wanted to do other things” with his life.
After two weeks pestering local stallholders he got a job as a shop boy at Billingsgate Market in Poplar, London, from a man known to locals as “the b*****d of Billingsgate”.
Soon after he became a fish porter and worked from 10pm until 10am, lugging boxes of seafood weighing up to 40kg.
Tony got his first acting gig aged 19 after his granddad suggested he top up his earnings with extra work.
He explains: “One of my first parts was on The Bill, I was on the jury, and fell in love with the whole acting process.
“I thought, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life’.”
Tony attended night classes between his day job and after getting an agent, went up for the part of Tyler.
He says: “I went through a few rounds and a screentest. It took a few months and so I just carried on working down the market in between.
“One day I got a call from my agent saying, ‘You’ve got the part’. For someone working on a fish market to land that was crazy and incredible.”
‘Best tip’
Tony described his first-day on-set as “surreal” and admits it “took about a year” to get used to seeing famous faces like Shane Ritchie and Steve McFadden at work.
But he says it was music legend David Essex – his onscreen dad Eddie – who put him at ease and calmed his nerves.
“I was new to it all and when I turned up, I told David, ‘I ain’t got a clue what I’m doing’,” Tony recalls.
“He told me, ‘Don’t worry son, none of us do’. It was exactly what I needed to hear. David was such a nice person.”
Tony also recalls being given great advice by acting stalwart Anne Mitchell, who played Cora Cross.
He recalls: “I was doing a scene with Anne, who is a very, very experienced actor, in the Queen Vic.
“I was so nervous and felt really stiff. I knew she could tell that too. So when the cameras cut, she leaned into me and said ‘Tony, let yourself be embarrassed’.
“It took a while to sink in but I understand what it meant with acting – doing it allowed you to be more creative and act better.
“If you’re worried about yourself and your own ego, you’re lending yourself to the character as much as you can.”
Tony dated his co-star Jacqueline Jossa and says it wasn’t easy adjusting to “having such a spotlight on a relationship” but was grateful that “EastEnders fans… were always respectful”.
His “proudest” moment on the soap was a boxing scene, which had been fixed by his brother Michael to make Tyler lose.
After taking a severe beating, Tyler miraculously managed to win, but moments later suffered a near-fatal seizure.
Tony recalls: “For research, I visited my family doctor who showed me exactly what it would look like, and it got me a doof-doof moment. It was a big storyline for Tyler.”
Celeb parties
Tony admits he got a few “interesting” messages from fans while playing “ladykiller” Tyler.
“For the heartthrob thing, it took some getting used to the idea of being portrayed in that way,” he says.
“I remember being the ‘torso of the week’ in The Sun, which was mad to see in print.
I remember being the ‘torso of the week’ in The Sun, which was mad to see in print
Tony Discipline
“People in my area used to knock on my door and ask for autographs, which used to be crazy.
“Sometimes five, six, seven, eight people would be standing outside, which used to be quite funny.”
Tony recalls an amusing gaffe during one of his “nervewracking” first big celebrity parties.
He says: “I remember I walked out of the bathroom and was just taking everything in when I felt a tugging under my foot.
“I thought, ‘What’s that?’ and realised I was standing on supermodel Elle Macpherson’s lovely long dress. She was right in front of me.
“I thought, ‘Oh my god, this isn’t a great start’. Luckily, she could see how embarrassed I was and gave me a little smile, which made me feel better.”
Billionaire investment
After leaving EastEnders in 2013 Tony moved to Vienna in Austria to undertake acting courses, and later moved to Los Angeles for pilot season before returning to the UK.
Between bit-parts and voiceovers, Tony launched nightclub events company Demure Parties and later started All So Pro, which paired celebrities with businesses.
He managed to land a £2million investment from multimillionaire Alfie Best, known as “Britain’s richest Gypsy”.
“Being a new company I knew getting angel investors was going to be quite difficult, but then I saw Alfie on a programme with Katherine Ryan,” Tony recalls.
“I saw the way he conducted himself and what he stood for and thought, ‘He may just invest with us’.
“So I constantly rang his office and eventually got a sit down meeting with him, and he agreed to invest in us.”
The company, which eventually closed down, at one point had clients including Peter Andre and Phones 4u founder John Caudwell.
‘Dangerous’ job
Four years ago Tony joined London Fire Brigade, attracted due to it being a “noble, honourable and varied job”.
Despite wearing his protective uniform on call outs, he says members of the public still recognise him and often ask him when he’s returning to EastEnders.
Tony says: “Once, while we were packing away, someone came over and said, ‘What are you filming?’ I said, ‘No, no, no. I’m not filming.’
“He replied, ‘Oh, I thought you were filming London’s Burning’ – they thought the TV show was being brought back for a new series.
“Other times it’s normally one of two things – people either think I play football with their cousin or they recognise but they are not 100 per cent sure where from.”
Tony also runs and serves drinks on The Tipsy Trailer Bar UK – a travelling bar for events, weddings and festivals – and fans have given it an amusing nickname.
“A lot of people call it ‘The Little Vic’ after they see me bartending and recognise me from EastEnders,” he chuckles.
While Tony’s happy with his two new gigs he admits he would love to go back to the soap.
“I loved my time there. It was a great chapter in my life and if the opportunity ever came up, I would definitely be interested,” he says.
“Tyler’s still alive, so it could happen. He left to join his brother Anthony on a cruise. They must have got stuck in the Arctic because it’s been a long old cruise!”
Tony Discipline stars in the new film Dream Hacker, which comes out later this year. To find out more about The Tipsy Trailer Bar, click here.