EastEnders’ Natalie Cassidy says her daughter, seven, has given a harsh verdict on Sonia
Natalie Cassidy has played Sonia Fowler on iconic soap Eastenders since she was ten-years-old, and now her daughter is of a similar age she loves the show - just not the parts where mum's on
Eastenders star Natalie Cassidy says her daughter is her harshest critic. Seven-year-old Joanie is not a fan of Albert Square legend Sonia Fowler and fast forwards the parts with her mum in it.
Natalie, 41, said: “She’ll go, ‘Mummy… Sonia’s so boring. I just don’t like watching you on here, honestly I just don’t like it.’”
“I say, ‘I’ve been there a long time darling, there’s a lot of people who do like me’. She says, ‘Well, I’m not one of them.’ She actually fast forwards my bits, but I don’t know if that’s because I’m her mum or that’s just her take on Sonia.”
Lola (Danielle Harold) and Sonia (Natalie Cassidy) on Eastenders (
BBC/Jack Barnes/Kieron McCarron)
Natalie has been in the soap since she was 10, in which time Sonia has fallen pregnant at 15, lost her love Jamie Mitchell, endured a rocky marriage to Martin Fowler and had a cancer scare.
Natalie said: “One day I’m sure Sonia will end. I hope she can potter about being a nurse a bit longer. I don’t want her to die a terrible death. I don’t want her to get run over or pushed over at Walford tube station.”
Natalie admits Sonia’s time might come someday (
Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Speaking to the Spinning Plates podcast with singer Sophie Ellis-Bexter, the mum-of-two told how she formed a close bond with late co-star June Brown (Dot Cotton).
She said: “When I was 20, June would have been mid 70s. She would stay at my house, we’d learn our lines and drink red wine, we’d go on holiday. She’d had a full career bringing up five children. She showed how you can do it all.”
