Former EastEnders star Nina Wadia has revealed why she wanted her character to be killed off from the soap.
The actor portrayed Zainab Masood on the BBC soap for six years before departing in 2013, with the character leaving Albert Square alongside her son Kamil, as they returned to Pakistan.
Over a decade on from her last appearance, Wadia appeared on Vanessa Feltz’s eponymous Channel 5 daytime talk show to discuss her stint on the soap, with the actor sharing that she failed in her attempts to have Zainab killed off.
“They [the producers] wouldn’t kill her [Zainab] off,” Wadia told Feltz (via The Sun). “I did ask to be killed off because I thought, ‘Yay, I’ll get a big storyline if I get killed off.’ But they were like, ‘No, we want her back someday.'”
Wadia, who has since appeared in Still Open All Hours and The Outlaws, also outlined some of the reasons for her exit, sharing: “When the storylines get so ridiculous and so difficult, you kind of think ‘I’m out’… There were several, but that was one of the main reasons.
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“I think that’s what happens when you have a change at the top, with the execs, they bring in their vision. Someone who hasn’t really been paying attention to what your character’s been doing – all of a sudden, you’re asked to do something absolutely ridiculous.”
Despite her dissatisfaction with her character’s storylines, Wadia didn’t rule out the possibility of reprising her role in the future, though she did caveat this by saying it would have to be “something more interesting” than what came before.
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Wadia isn’t the only former EastEnders star to discuss a potential return, with Ross Kemp recently refusing to close the door on his future as Grant Mitchell following his stint in the soap’s 40th anniversary celebrations.
“You just don’t know, do you?”, said the actor, who returned in February following a nine-year absence. “You don’t know what’s in the minds of the people who work on it. I’ve also known that without it, I wouldn’t have had the career that I’ve had.”
