To have this career, to be here still... it is incredible
EASTENDERS STAR DENISE FOX ON HER ( VERY) DRAMATIC 10 YRS ON SOAP
EASTENDERS’ Denise Fox hit a new low when she bedded boozy Phil Mitchell... and the actress who plays her could not be happier about it.
As Diane Parish blew out candles on a cake to celebrate ten dramatic years portraying the troubled character, she spoke of her love for the role and her fellow soap stars.
She said: “I never imagined I’d be here now. To have this career, to be making a living out of it and still be in this fortunate position ten years later, it’s incredible.
“It still feels like a family to me and a place I want to go to work every day. That’s a very charmed existence for an actor.”
As the Sunday People joined her on the Albert Square set, and presented her with the special cake, mum-of-two Diane, 47, opened her heart about her time in the hit BBC show.
It has not always been easy. Fame has brought its problems and losing much-loved colleagues has been painful.
She said Dame Barbara Windsor’s gripping final scenes as Peggy Mitchell last week “tore my heart out”. But she insisted EastEnders will continue to thrive with new stars like Danny Dyer and Kellie Bright (Queen Vic landlord Mick and Linda Carter).
More than eight million people watched Peggy take her life with an overdose of pills after being diagnosed with cancer.
In the poignant final scene she hallucinates and has a conversation with her former love- rival turned friend Pat Butcher. Pat, played by Pam St Clement, who died from cancer in the soap in 2012.
Diane said: “Losing characters you love and who mean a l ot to EastEnders is hard. ”
Warm
Pam St Clement’s exit four years ago was “a heavy loss”, she said.
Diane explained: “She was missed. We all chatted about our Pat. It was really felt when she went because you’d be in situations thinking, ‘Oh that’s a Pat moment. What would Pat have done in that situation?’
“I watched Peggy’s last scenes in one batch and it tore my heart out. Barbara, as Peggy, was the definition of an East End mother.
“She is such a huge part of East End life, of British life, and such a wonderful, warm character. I get a lump in my throat just talking about it because I didn’t know before it was announced that Peggy was going to die.
“But I get that Barbara has done what she wanted with the show. She just wanted to draw a line under it. It’s great that as an actress she did what she needed to say goodbye.” Diane’s character was called Denise Wicks when she joined EastEnders in May 2006. But she made her original debut eight years earlier in a completely different role, singer Lola Christie. Laughing, she recalled: “I remember doing a party scene back then with people like Dean Gaffney (Robbie Jackson). Lola had to come down some stairs and I went flying. I got to the bottom and both the heels on my boots had come off. I was new and it was mortifying.” That part ended but EastEnders had not seen the back of Diane. She said: “I always had this nagging feeling that I would work there again, that somehow I was meant to be there. “I kept the feelers out with my agent and when they introduced this inter-racial family, the Wicks, I knew it felt right.” In the ten years Diane has played her, shopkeeper Denise had seen her share of drama. She has been held hostage by her estranged first husband Owen Turner, seen second husband Kevin Wicks killed in a car smash and married murderer Lucas Johnson. After Lucas tried to strangle her and locked
her in a basement, everyone thought Denise was dead. More recently she has weathered a loveless engagement to Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt).
And last month she and Phil (Steve McFadden) drunkenly put aside their mutual hatred to sleep together.
Soap fame is something that Rada-trained Shakespearian actor Diane accepts but does not relish.
She said: “I came from a theatre background. I did have people recognise me in a mild sort of way when I was on Lovejoy and The Bill. But EastEnders is a different beast. It has this slight pop star phenomenon about it. If you are breathing the air on Albert Square, people are entranced and want to know everything about it. It’s like you’re stepping out of their TV screen and into their world.
“People have come up to me in swimming pools on holiday and said, ‘Is it you off EastEnders?’ Sometimes I say ‘No’, just to see where that goes.” She shrugs: “It’s just part of the deal.”
Storylines about Denise have been hard on Diane’s daughters Kenya, 10 and Kaya, eight.
She said: “I was walking down the street with Kenya when she was just five and someone came up and said, ‘Ain’t you meant to be dead?’
Dark
“It was a time when my stories were dark. Kenya looked at me and asked, ‘Why is somebody saying that, Mum?’” Diane’s love for other cast members is clear. She still has dinner with Lindsey Coulson, who played Carol Jackson, and is very close to Tameka Empson, who plays Denise’s half-sister Kim Fox. And working alongside long-serving actor Rudolph Walker, the 76- year- old actor who plays Patrick Trueman, has been a career highlight. Diane said: “Some of my favourite times have been with Rudolph. That combination of me and him is one of the most cherished things. He’s always been a mentor, a father figure and a friend. I grew up watching him so it is so special to be playing alongside him. He is our king, our Morgan Freeman. My scenes with him were very poignant.
Some of my other favourite storylines were with Phil Daniels as Kevin Wicks and Don Gilet as Lucas.
“It didn’t look like a blast on screen but they were great to work with.
“Danny Dyer is like that. He cracks us all up. He is the joker on set but he is he is also a very clever actor.
“He knows what to do when the cameras are rolling. All of us have the occasional giggle and can then go home and be a different person.”
EastEnders goes from strength to strength, scooping Best Soap at the Baftas and having nominations in the British Soap Awards next Saturday.
Diane said: “We need to build cast and hold on to characters.” Having built Denise into a major character, will she be there in another ten years?
Diane replied: “I have thought about doing more theatre but I’m fortunate to be here right now. Who knows what the future holds – I’m over the moon to be doing the job I love.”
Losing Peggy tore my heart out