EastEnders star banned from knowing role and given codename before joining soap
Actress shares the lengths show bosses went to keep her arrival a secret
Joining the Fowler family has been a dream come true for EastEnders actress Alice Haig. When she stepped on to Albert Square as the new Vicki – the love child of teen mum Michelle Fowler and Dirty Den Watts – she knew she was instantly becoming part of a huge soap legacy.
Her big arrival in Walford was such a huge event, totally shrouded in secrecy, that her character was given a code name, she tells. Even Alice herself was told only two days before filming who she would be playing. Lifting the lid on the lengths the soap went to to keep her entrance under wraps, Alice says, 'I knew I was in it. I knew what the scripts were, I knew who the character was for me. But I didn't know my name.
'It was a code name. It was Sammy. I didn't know until about two or three days before I started filming. And then they tell you at a certain point, and then they give you loads of information about it at that point, when you know you're in and you're in proper. And then it happened. When I found out, I was like, 'This is amazing.' It couldn't have been better. I have the best parents, the legacy. It's so good.'
It was announced that Alice had joined the show back in February and she first appeared on screen in April, when she arrived in Walford for the funeral of her uncle Martin (played by James Bye). She is now the fourth actress to play Vicki – the daughter of Michelle (Susan Tully) and Den (Leslie Grantham) – who was at the centre of a controversial storyline about teen pregnancy, with viewers initially kept in the dark about who her dad was.
A fan of the BBC soap since she was a child, Alice reveals that the part felt like it was meant to be. 'I've always watched it and I was born in February 1985, so I'm the same age as EastEnders,' she has previously said.
Vicki is back on the Square after 20 years, bringing her new boyfriend Ross (Alex Walkinshaw) and his son Joel (Max Murray) with her. Before that she'd been running a bar in Australia with her long-term love Spencer Moon.
When she arrives in Walford with a new man on her arm, it comes as quite a shock to her sister Sharon (Letitia Dean) and Spencer's brother Alfie (Shane Richie) – who had no idea the couple had split.
Alice says she still can't believe she gets to work with her soap idols every day. 'I pinch myself all the time on set,' she admits. 'Being around Adam (Woodyatt), and Tish (Letitia Dean). My first scene was with them. Tish is amazing, Adam's amazing, Steve (McFadden) is amazing. When they're in the scene we just aired this week, I had to pinch myself when Phil Mitchell was stopping me from going somewhere. I was like, 'What the... This is amazing!'
'My family, they're really proud. They're watching it for the first time in ages. We used to watch it as a family and now they're watching it again. Honestly, it's the nicest place to work.'
Alice comes from an acting family – her mum Julia Gray acts under the stage name Jane Galloway and her dad is David Haig, 69, an actor and playwright known for his role as Bernard in Four Weddings And A Funeral. He was awarded an MBE for his services to drama. Alongside penning plenty of successful plays, David also starred in Doc Martin, The Thick Of It and Downton Abbey. Most recently he was in Killing Eve, in which he played Sandra Oh's spy colleague Bill, who was killed off by Jodie Comer 's character Villanelle.
After graduating from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, south London-born Alice, 40, went on to appear in various television and stage productions. She played journalist Sophie in the comedy Rain Dogs and a nurse in This Is Going To Hurt. She also secured a role on Disney+ series Andor – a Star Wars spin-off – before announcing her Walford debut.
Alice says her part in EastEnders is her biggest role to date – and she's loving being part of such a huge show. 'It's been totally lovely,' she said at the British Soap Awards. 'Anybody who's come up to me in the street has been really nice. It's all new for me. I did a lot of theatre and television before, but TV was just one episode of a drama or something like that, so it's very different to this, which is on in everybody's living rooms every night.'
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