BBC1 MONDAY
THE BIG interview
STAR NATALIE CASSIDY JOINS US TO REFLECT ON THREE DECADES OF WALFORD DRAMA, THOUGH SHE’S NOT ONE TO BLOW HER OWN TRUMPET…
It’s crazy, isn’t it? Makes you feel old!” laughs EastEnders icon Natalie Cassidy, as we congratulate her on 30 years of playing Sonia. “I’m around younger members of the cast at work and I say to them, ‘How old are you?’ and when they say 11, I tell them, ‘I was doing this at your age!’. And that’s when I realise how long it’s been; it’s amazing looking back.”
Natalie joined the Square with the Jackson family in 1993, one year after Inside Soap first hit the shelves, so we feel as though we’ve lived her journey with her. Talking to Nat is such a pleasure, as she’s very much an old soul who’s learned from legends such as June Brown (Dot Cotton), Wendy Richard (Pauline Fowler) and Barbara Windsor (Peggy Mitchell). And while Sonia has inherited both the spirit and wisdom of their characters, Natalie lives and breathes all of the values that you’d expect from an EastEnders stalwart honouring their legacies…
Congratulations on such a milestone, Natalie! Does your Walford debut feel like yesterday?
Thank you so much! It actually doesn’t feel like yesterday to me, and I don’t know whether that’s because I was so young, but those days do feel a long time ago now. People message me to talk about Classic EastEnders [on the Drama channel] and say, “Remember when you were doing this with Nigel, Clare and Janine?”, and I go, “Oh God, yeah, I do remember now!” We were a little crew back then.
How did you get the job? And did it change your life?
Being 10, you don’t realise what you’re getting into. I was just a little girl going up the road to Anna Scher, my acting teacher, who sadly passed away not long ago. There was this little school in Islington and we’d get EastEnders casting people come to sit in on our improv work. I think they just thought, ‘She’s a bit fun’ and so I got the audition, went up for the part and got it!
Were you from an acting family?
None of my family are actors or in the entertainment industry, although a few of them should be, as I think there are a few funny bones and a few characters! Getting this job was about luck, being in the right place at the right time, and then to keep it for as long as I have is down to professionalism, being good at what you do and being kind. I believe I stand for all the right things and what it takes to be in a show for this long.
Natalie on...
“People ask me if I’m sick of the trumpet and I say, ‘How can you be sick of something that people love so much?’” beams Natalie. “It kind of went away, and
