Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it... that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.
But really, for the most part - doing a prequel is great because you do have room to kind of free this character and how they got to where they are instead of being a slave to exactly what the previous actor did.
And the fact that I liked to show off and be the center of attention really lends itself to figure skating very well.