As well as being a professional actor on TV, film and stage, recent CNWL student Leon is also a qualified baker and chef patissier. And when he’s at home in summer, he quite likes to cook naked – provided the weather is good.

 

He bakes a mean Cornish pasty and has won prizes for his hot cross buns and wholemeal loaves. And he’s so relaxed in his skin that the odd nude role doesn’t worry him at all.

 

Risqué sequences have included nude scenes in the Channel 5 drama series Tripping Over, in which he played gay carpenter Callum, and another gay nude scene on the West End stage in 2009 in Plague Over England.

 

But the role that could really set tongues wagging is an episode of the new series of Secret Diary of a Call Girl, in which he plays a client of high class hooker Belle - because he and its star Billie Piper both strip to the buff for a steamy sex scene.

 

The film company were delighted with the chemistry between the two and told Leon that he was “the best looking actor of his generation”, with “the charisma of a young Tom Cruise”. “It’s nice to hear that – even if it is an exaggeration,” he says modestly.

.

The latest series, Series 3, starts broadcasting on ITV2 on Thursday 28 January 2010 at 10pm, with a further showing on the US network Showtime.

.

Leon could get some ribbing when he next shows his face at the College of North West London in Willesden. Last term he completed a Plastering Level 1 course to give himself an extra skill, fitted around his career commitments.

 

This year he was unable to enrol for Level 2 because he had so much acting work lined up. But he returned to the College twice with great success in October 2009 to lead workshops with Performing Arts students, and staff are hopeful he will do more if he can find the time.

 

Leon filmed the Secret Diary nude scene in June 2009 when his not-so-secret diary was packed with four assignments in ten days. After Secret Diary, he filmed the first episode of Identity, a six-part police drama about identity theft starring Aidan Gillen and Keeley Hawes and due to be screened on ITV1 in spring 2010.  

 

Then he returned to commercials, filming a new humorous ‘ident’ for the Channel 4 self-build series Grand Designs sponsored by B&Q. His first short, which found him enjoying life in a bachelor kitchen, was popular enough to boost B&Q sales, it is rumoured, by 14 per cent.

 

Finally, he filmed a corporate training video with a spy theme over four days. Then it was back to College to finish off his final plastering assignments.

 

Leon has a small role in the horror film Dread which opens in US cinemas at the end of January, while later in 2010 he will be seen as a pilot in the George Lucas film Red Tails.

 

And if he’s ever at a loose end – which seems unlikely right now – he can always go back to his spare time job of making cupcakes and scones at the Bake a Boo cakeshop in West Hampstead, where ladies of leisure and mums and kids go for afternoon tea.