STEVE John Shepherd and Rupert Penry-Jones first worked together in unusual circumstances. The latter was stark naked and strapped to a billiard table at the time. The pair were filming a scene for Virtual Sexuality which, like many a British film comedy before it, failed to find an audience in the cinema.

The actors are doing better than the movie, thanks to TV roles. Shepherd as Jo, junior clerk in chambers, in This Life, and Penry-Jones as a cocksure barrister in the Leeds-set series North Square.

They have other things in common besides legal eagle TV series and being tall, fit and good-looking. Both have been linked romantically, as they say in the tabloids, with ex-soap stars who sing - Penry-Jones with diminutive Aussie popster Kylie Minogue (she was spotted on the back of his motorbike zooming around Stratford-upon-Avon while he was with the Royal Shakespeare Company) and Shepherd with EastEnder turned My Fair Lady, Martine McCutcheon.

The two are together again in a revival of J B Priestley's play Dangerous Corner running at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, en route to London's West End. Penry-Jones spent five months in Leeds filming Channel 4's North Square, disgracefully axed after one series because of disappointing ratings (although The Northern Echo features department rated it one of the best series of last year). His memories of the city seem to be confined to its bars. He pleads: "We were working really hard so you don't get to do much." This Life, too, ended after two series despite hints that a third might happen. "It was touch and go but eventually everyone was quite happy it had finished," says Shepherd.

Dangerous Corner, Priestley's first work for the theatre in 1932, is being updated to a minimalist 21st Century environment revolving around a dinner party for friends in the publishing business when all sorts of secrets pop to the surface. "It has contemporary resonances but is very much the same play," says Shepherd. "We haven't changed the script, although instead of saying 'damn' you want to say something stronger. But we don't," adds Penry-Jones. He liked the fact the play was a real page-turner as well as being an ensemble piece.

The cast also includes Ballykissangel's Dervla Kirwin, Casualty's Patrick Robinson and Jacqueline Pearce, fondly remembered as Servalan in sci-fi cult show Blake's 7. Shepherd didn't hesitate to accept his first theatre role for some time on hearing who else was involved in the production - "because the cast is very high quality". He came to acting through dancing after declaring, at the age of 16, he wanted to be a ballet dancer. His fatal flaw, he admits, was being a late starter "because you can't start late unless you are Nureyev". He had the added problem of a hip fault that meant he couldn't make all the moves required to ballet dancers. "I have no turn out," he says, getting technical. "I thought maybe they could have done something with me if I persevered."

Realising he was past help, he turned to acting with which he'd flirted at school where he played Danny Zucko in a staging of the musical Grease. So he auditioned for drama school and got in. "My family thought it was a bit bizarre but I don't regret it," he says.

Penry-Jones had acting in his blood, as the son of actors Peter Penry-Jones and Angela Thorne, from sit-com To The Manor Born and who played Mrs Thatcher on stage in Anyone For Dennis? His parents didn't encourage him to act, finally giving their blessing after seeing him play Doctor Faustus in a school production.

"I did the National Youth Theatre for four years and that's where the bug really bit," he says. "It was a world I thought I belonged to until I got kicked out of drama school. It was a clash of personalities. My parents knew I wasn't happy there. My mum was telling me I should leave because I was clearly not enjoying it. I think maybe drama schools are a rip-off." Shepherd has found his ballet training helpful in acting as it taught him awareness of his own body and economy of movement that he didn't have before.

Both have found the exposure of a TV series helpful in getting considered for other jobs. They're no longer just one of a large faceless crowd, having TV work as a point of reference for directors and casting people. Shepherd received a lot of "Cockney wide boy" offers in the wake of This Life, opting instead for the Pauline Quirke BBC series Maisie Raine and TV drama Forgive And Forget, in which he played a gay man. He's also had roles in three very different movies, including a little independent British film and a small role in a big film, the next Star Wars which involved filming in front of a blue screen in Ealing Studios. "I am standing there with a silly hat saying, your ship has landed'," he says.

He travelled to Prague for From Hell, in which Johnny Depp plays an English policeman investigating the Jack the Ripper murders. "Prague is beautiful and the cast was amazing," he says. "And Johnny Depp was really, really cool."

After a year on stage with the RSC, Penry-Jones has been developing his movie career too. If Virtual Sexuality didn't work out as planned, the role provided valuable experience in front of a camera. "I hadn't done that much film before that and it was playing the lead in a movie so it didn't matter how many times I had to take my clothes off," he explains.

He has roles in two big movies waiting release - the remake of the adventure classic The Four Feathers and Charlotte Gray, based on the novel by Sebastian Faulks. At this very moment he should have been in Hollywood shooting a new Disney film, a mix of animation and live action. Now the start date has been pushed back to next year.

The two actors haven't met since making Virtual Sexuality, partly because their looks mean they don't go up for the same roles. "He's a bit more rugged than me," says Penry-Jones. "You're a bit more refined than me," responds Shepherd.

* Dangerous Corner is at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until October 13. Tickets 0113 213 7700.