EASTENDERS actress Natalie Cassidy has confessed that she does not miss the soap having filmed her final scenes for the show.
The actress quit her role as Sonia Fowler after more than 30 years on the BBC soap opera with her final scenes expected to play out over the next few weeks.
Opening up about her exit, Natalie revealed that she is glad to be free of the “burden” that comes with working on a soap.
She was speaking to her co-host Joanna Page on the duo’s BBC Sounds podcast Off The Telly.
Discussing her brand new hair-do, Natalie said: “It is nice to have a little bit of length and feel a bit different from Sonia.
“The burden of learning lines every night has gone which is a really lovely thing.
“I feel like I’ve finally got the evenings back.”
As Joanna quizzed if she was forgetting if she’d actually left or not, Nat said: “No I’m not forgetting.
“At the moment it is early days and you always miss the people and miss your friends but I am not missing the work.”
Sonia was at the centre of drama on the show last month thanks to being central to the programme’s 40th anniversary celebrations.
She gave birth to evil killer Reiss Colwell’s baby, whom she named Julia, during the show’s live episode.
But whilst Natalie is happy with her decision to quit the show for now, she has already waged war on soap bosses if they dared to recast.
EastEnders star Natalie Cassidy hints Sonia Fowler will die in explosive live episode
She said: “If they recast Sonia, I’m going to Borehamwood [where the show is shot] with a sledgehammer.
“I feel very protective about Sonia.
“She could die off screen, though.
“We could be watching it one night and you know the old phone call: Cathy runs in saying, ‘Ian, I’ve just had a message, Sonia’s dead’.
“That could easily happen.
“But I do hope, like for the 50th anniversary, that I could pop back.”
MICHELLE Collins has seen her second EastEnders stint boost her bank balance. Yet what stars have quit this year?
The Sun exclusively reported how Michelle, 62, was down to £20,000 in her company accounts when she agreed to a shock back-from-the-dead return to Albert Square last year.
Her character, Cindy Beale, was presumed dead off-camera in 1998.
Yet what about the 2024 exits?
Earlier this summer, loyal soap fans appeared to note how Stevie Mitchell had “quit” the long-running series.
It came after Alan Ford enjoyed just six-months on-screen.
Bobby Beale actor Clay Milner Russell also left this year after five years in Walford.
Fans also feared Martin Fowler actor James Bye would “quit out of boredom” over recent storylines.
Additionally, a host of stars have quit the BBC soap for Hollywood fame.
One of the most successful stars to come from the BBC One soap is Rob Kazinsky.
He played Stacey Slater’s brother Sean Slater from 2006 to 2009, he has starred in Hollywood blockbusters Pacific Rim and Captain Marvel.
Ben Hardy, who quit EastEnders as Bobby Beale almost a decade ago, went on to break Hollywood the following year, when he starred as Archangel in X-Men: Apocalypse.
Since then, he has played Roger Taylor in Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, and he starred in Michael Bay’s Netflix movie 6 Underground.
Michelle Ryan played Zoe Slater until 2005.
She starred as the lead in short-lived American series Bionic Woman from 2007 to 2008.
