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Ice skating isn't easy, as actors Poppy Lee Friar and Will Tudor found out the hard way.

In upcoming ITV drama, Torvill & Dean the bubbly stars play, you've guessed it, Olympic champions Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean.

But neither had much experience of the sport before they got their skates on for filming.

"I fell on my coccyx a few times!" quips Friar, 23 (you'll recognise her from Channel 4 drama Ackley Bridge).

"I had only skated twice before, once was for a birthday party; I loved it but could only go in straight lines, and couldn't turn," adds 31-year-old Tudor, known for shows such as Game Of Thrones and Humans, when discussing training for the role.

"The second time was for a date, terrible idea. The skates I was wearing were blunt, I was sliding around like Bambi on ice."

However the pair embraced the chance to learn a new skill. For two weeks, they skated for two to three hours a day.

"Top level ice skating is just amazing to me," notes London-born Friar.

"Obviously we're nowhere near that, but I really enjoyed it.

"What an amazing opportunity to soak up as many of these skills as possible, teach me the cross overs, teach me how to skate backwards.

"There were moments where, physically, all the training just clicked into place."

"That moment when you're gliding along on one leg, suddenly you feel this incredible freedom," affirms Londoner Tudor. "You get the peace of being on the ice.

"You can completely imagine how Torvill and Dean could get wrapped up in this world and these dances, because it is very, very beautiful."

The one-off show tells the story of the pair's early years of working together and what drove them to win gold at the 1984 Olympic games in Sarajevo, when they danced their famous Bolero routine and achieved a score of 12 perfect 6.0s.

Did Friar and Tudor feel pressure playing such famous real people?

"I don't think we could think about it really. If we did, we'd freak out a little bit," says Tudor.

"It's only afterwards you think, 'Oh my goodness!'"

"We spoke to them and they're so kind; they gave us creative licence, they're ecstatic that this is happening," says Friar.

"As an actor you take little bits from what you see online, what you read and apply it to yourself to make it your own.

"Of course, there is a pressure when you think about it now, but at the time I was just thinking about what's going on in the scene."

Although the duo are reluctant to give too much away about the show, which also stars Anita Dobson, Stephen Tompkinson and Jaime Winstone, they confirm we will see a romance storyline develop between Torvill and Dean.

"The writer, Billy Ivory, conducted lots of interviews with them, so whatever happens is based on some kind of truth," reveals Friar.

Tudor says what he took away from the story is that the ice skating heroes' relationship was "extraordinary" and "based on love".

"That love, in whatever form, is what allowed them to create these beautiful pieces; they needed that to be able to spend as much time together as they did," he suggests.

"When we chatted to them on Face Time they had this wonderful banter together."

It is undeniable that being able to chat to the real Torvill and Dean really helped shape how they approached the roles.

"An interesting thing Torvill and Dean told us is that it wasn't like they felt this spark straight away, there wasn't a lightning strike moment," recalls Tudor.

"Over time, those complimentary character traits they had really started to work.

"They both believed in the same end goal and the way they approached it. It wasn't just about technique, it was also about the feel and emotion of these dances."

One thing the audience will realise is just how much sacrifice achieving their ice-skating dream required.

Both Torvill and Dean, who were from very normal working class families in Nottingham, had jobs off the rink; she was an insurance clerk and he a policeman.

Dean apparently tried to persuade Torvill to find another partner several times, because he worried he couldn't make the training work with his job.

But she was determined that would not be the case.

"A lot of it surprised me," Tudor says of the story.

"They have this sort of mythical status in culture and to see the humans behind these amazing routines... What they did was approaching perfection.

"To see the sacrifice and humanity behind this extraordinary work was really exciting."

Discussing the script further, Friar says: "It was interesting to find about their history, background, where they came from, their family, their life before taking the risk to pursue their art. And the romantic side."

Acting is a notoriously tough industry, in which you have to be very determined to succeed.

Do the stars see any similarities between themselves and Torvill and Dean in that sense?

"You just have to believe in yourself," a smiley Friar says with a nod of her head.

"They obviously believed in themselves and what they were doing. That was the drive keeping them going. It was almost an obsession.

"You have to have all of those things to survive as an actor."

"That's absolutely true," Tudor agrees wholeheartedly.

"It released in me my own tendencies, which were quite similar to what was in the script.

"The discipline that Torvill & Dean had did feel very familiar.

"In a way, coming from this job has made me grow as an actor - by studying another creative art form, seeing how people deal with that and channel it."

Torvill & Dean will be shown on ITV over the Christmas period.