Aaron Sidwell, who played cunning Steven Beale in EastEnders, has criticised the soap for taking its actors for granted.
And he says he’ll never do another soap because he didn’t enjoy being a part of Enders.
“I don’t want to do a soap again. It wasn’t a discipline I enjoyed,” he told the Daily Star.
“There was a lot of negativity around, and my storylines did meander for me. I also think the soap actors can get take for granted too.”
Aaron is currently treading the boards, touring with a production of the West End musical Wicked. He has done a lot of theatre in his career and he says he feels much more at home on stage than he ever did in EastEnders.
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“I always felt like I didn’t belong there quite as much as I do in a theatre environment,” he said. “Doing theatre means you get to push boundaries a little more, and there’s always something new to discover.”
Aaron returned to EastEnders in 2016 after eight years away from his role as Steven.
His character quickly made his mark, cheating on fiancee Lauren with her sister Abi, getting Abi pregnant, faking a terminal brain tumour, and tormenting Jane Beale when he got mixed up in part of Max Branning’s revenge plot.
But when it was announced Steven was being killed off, Aaron wasn’t impressed either.
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Back then, he said: “At first I was gutted but I went back to EastEnders because I wanted to buy a house and I’ve done that. It feels like the right time to move on. I feel sorry for Adam Woodyatt (aka Ian Beale).
“Killing off another of his on-screen children seemed like an odd decision, but the writers assured us there is a bigger picture.
“Time will tell if it was the right thing to do.”