EastEnders Billy star Perry Fenwick calls final scenes with Lola devastating

EastEnders star Perry Fenwick has opened up about filming Lola Pearce's (Danielle Harold) death scene, revealing that it was "really hard" not to cry "before you're meant to" during the "devastating" moment.

The long-time soap star has played Billy Mitchell on EastEnders since 1998, however he's said that the character is "never going to be the same man again" following Lola's death, which is due to air next week.

Speaking to OK! at an EastEnders screening, Perry spoke about shooting his last scene with Danielle, who he's worked with since 2011, saying: "My last scenes with this one – just devastating."

"In the show, we lose Lola. In real life, we lose Dannie, obviously, you know that she's not going to be around at work anymore."

He continued: "We started off doing this storyline and we all committed to painting the big picture. We came up with this, this sort of euphemism of this whole storyline being like our little Sistine Chapel. And we have to get every single bit of it right.

"And at the end of the hard day, we'd say 'Right, that's that bit painted, that's that bit done, are we were happy with it?' and whatever. And then if these two were working together, and I wasn't there, and I'd be texting, 'So how's the painting going'? And all that sort of thing."

He added that while they are usually offered tear sticks to help them cry on set, they weren't needed on this occasion.

"Yeah, it was really hard not crying before you're meant to. It's been hard. But it's kind of, I think, the message that he's put out and for the show, Chris [Clenshaw], for the actors for you know, there's a few of us in this story who have kind of been on the back bench for a while in terms of EastEnders and it's a fantastic opportunity. Thank you, mate, for giving us an opportunity to show what we can do."

The soap has spent the last year following Lola's decline in health after the 26-year-old was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the end of last year.

Danielle originally joined the show in 2011 as Billy's granddaughter and has since given birth to her daughter Lexi Pearce, who she conceived at the age of 15 after a one-night stand with Ben Mitchell, and married Jay Brown.

Speaking about her final episode, Danielle said that the scenes are "beautiful", adding that when she got to the second page of the script, she was "in absolute bits".

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