When Christian Black went for a job as a movie extra he never dreamed he would end up as one of the stars of the show.

Within weeks, the Hove lifeguard was rubbing shoulders with Friends star David Schwimmer and Oscar winner Tom Hanks.

Christian, 25, who lives in Kingsway, Hove, is about to burst on to our screens playing a soldier in Band Of Brothers, a television spin-off of Steven Spielberg's hit film Saving Private Ryan.

Christian, who is also a photographer, originally signed up for 10 months of filming as an extra but was singled out by one of the series directors to take on a bigger role.

He said: "I started working on the production as a film extra but, after two weeks, Richard Loncraine, who was the director of episode two, came up to me and said he wanted me to have my own character.

"I was pretty chuffed really. It was interesting as I had never done anything like it before.

"My character is called Hendrix. He is based on a real person who only died last year and the story is based on true events.

"My main part is in episode two but I am in it for the rest of the series as well."

The production stars famous names, including David Schwimmer and Dexter Fletcher, who was in Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.

Before filming, Christian was sent with 20 extras and 30 actors for 11 days of intensive boot camp training at Longmore camp in Hampshire.

He said: "I was chosen because I was ex-military, even though I had only been an Army cadet. They wanted people who were fit and knew how to fire weapons.

"The training was pretty harsh, including five-mile runs every morning before breakfast and a lot of sleep deprivation, staying up till goodness knows what time looking through windows in a concrete bunker, as though we were on sentry duty.

"We had a lot of weapons training so we could fire guns and hold them correctly."

The training also included parachute jumps and assault courses and was intended to make their on-screen performances as realistic as possible.

Christian said: "They were trying to make it as hard as they could. Quite a few of the actors got injured, including David Schwimmer, who busted his knee and was out for a couple of days."

He enjoyed filming the 10-part series, which was produced by Spielberg and Tom Hanks and filmed at the Hatfield Studios in Hertfordshire.

He said: "There were a lot of times when we were told to fire weapons and they filmed us running through town sets while they were blowing up the buildings above.

"They used squibs to make it seem as though there was gunfire all around and we had to run past as they exploded mortars in the ground next to us."

During the filming, Christian, who was brought up in Worthing, worked closely with Tom Hanks, who directed one of the episodes.

He said: "He was a top bloke. You might think because he is so famous he would be stuck up but he was a really nice guy, one of the nicest people I have met in the film business."

Despite his success, Christian has no ambitions to pursue a career in acting.

He said: "It isn't something I really want to follow up as far as acting goes. I do want to work in the film industry but I want to do stills photography.

"I do work as a movie extra from time to time because it is good money and good fun.

"Being in Band Of Brothers was good because it has given me some good contacts and they let me take lots of pictures while we were filming."

Since filming Band Of Brothers between March and November last year, Christian has travelled to Normandy to feature in a car advert based on the series.

He has also had lots of offers for film extra work.

He said: "I made a lot of contacts and, because the British film industry is not very big, I seem to meet someone who worked on Band Of Brothers everywhere I work."

The series is based on the exploits of a real-life group of American soldiers called The Easy Company, who were part of the 506th regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.

The story begins at a training camp in the American South, then follows the soldiers as they parachute into France in the early hours of D-Day.

The epic series cost more than $120 million to make and involved about 10,000 extras, a huge amount for a television series.

It is based on a book by American historian Stephen Ambrose, who also wrote Citizen Soldiers, which was adapted for the big screen as Saving Private Ryan.

Christian said he once considered a career in the Army but decided against the idea.

He said: "I don't think it is for me. I could not handle having to go through that kind of training every day for three years."

The first episode of the ten-part series will be shown on BBC2 on Friday.