Bringing a soap character back from the dead after 25 years is no easy task, even for EastEnders. But with Cindy Beale back on our screens for the first time since she was carted off to prison in 1998, Michelle Collins has revealed the real reason she is back.
"I’m loving being back, it feels like I’ve come full circle," she told us of her soap comeback. But brilliantly the main reason Michelle has returned is that she doesn't have much of a commute!
"It is [the studio] only 20 minutes from my house — that’s the most important thing and that’s actually the only reason I’ve gone back," she joked.
"We filmed everything on location about six weeks ago and now I’m back filming in the Square so that feels very different. It’s surreal and it’s nerve-wracking but it’s also very exciting I think if it had happened five years ago I probably would have said no. It's all about getting the timing right."
EastEnders boss Chris Clenshaw also revealed the extraordinary lengths it took to get Michelle's iconic character back on our screens...
"We started talking about it well over a year ago," he admitted. "Once we started to look at the story we had to make sure it was credible — Cindy was dead but we didn’t see a body so it was making sure that that worked."
Michelle and Chris also revealed that operation 'bring back Cindy and Ian' also had a code name... "We had secret character names," said Michelle.
"We wanted them to be called George and Mildred but it didn’t really work because we have a character called George now so it got really confusing!" Chris laughed.
Michelle Collins and Adam Woodyatt, who plays Walford legend Ian Beale, also had a secret dinner in a pub to discuss their return where they ended up having to wear their hoods up for the whole meal.
"The hardest thing has been not being able to tell anybody," admitted Michelle. "For the last 26 years, people have been asking ‘when are you going back?’ and now it was actually happening and I couldn’t tell anyone!"
To find out exactly what Cindy has been up to for the last 25 years, watch EastEnders' special extended episode on Thursday, June 22 at 7.30pm.
