Jamie Foreman has told how he found EastEnders gruelling work, with shifts of up to 18 hours a day and weekends.
The 64-year-old played Derek Branning from 2011 to the following Christmas, when he was killed off with a heart attack.
Asked for his most memorable moment on the BBC soap, Jamie said: “I was too tired to pay attention to an anecdote. I’d need to get in at seven in the morning and finish at eight at night.
“By the time I got home I was doing 18 hours a day. I looked at my lines for the next day before going to bed. God, I’ve never worked so hard in my life, it was like a factory when you worked on EastEnders.
“You didn’t get a chance to do anything else. When I started they said, ‘You do the occasional Saturday.’ I was in the studio every single Saturday in the 13 months I was there.
"Anyone in the acting business who thinks about EastEnders, you try to do it. It’s the hardest work you’ll ever do.
"It’s full on all the time. But you learn so much even with my years of experience. I look back at it fondly, though.” Jamie, whose character had a fling with Queen Vic landlady Kat Moon ( Jessie Wallace ), praised the late Barbara Windsor for advising him in his formative years.
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He said: “Barbara was a very good friend and she was very helpful in directing me in the right direction and get me going.
“The best advice she gave me was to go to a stage school and told me what I needed to do to get in. This was when I was 14.
“Then once I auditioned for Italia Conti stage school, she gave the best advice… and I pass this on to any young aspiring actor or actress, dancer, singer. Barbara said, ‘Now you’re on your own.’ And that’s what you are.
“You don’t have anyone to go find you work, you have got to audition, study hard and learn the game and trade, and fortunately 49 years later I’m still here doing it. She told me to believe in yourself. She was amazing.
“She deserves all the accolades she received.” Barbara died in 2020 aged 83.
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