EastEnders star Natalie Cassidy shares secret of post-soap success
She played Sonia Fowler for over 30 years in the soap.
EastEnders‘ star Natalie Cassidy has shared the secret for her post-soap success. The actor is well-known for her role as Sonia Fowler in the TV soap, first appearing as the character in 1993. Throughout the years, she’d appeared as Sonia intermittently, until she finally said goodbye to Albert Square in 2025.
Since leaving, Natalie has appeared on the sixth season of The Masked Singer, and won the fifth series of Cooking with the Stars. She also landed hosting duties of two shows, Natalie Cassidy Learning to Care and What’s the Big Deal: Britain’s Best Buys.
While appearing on the White Wine Question Time, she told host Katie Thornton what she believes is the reason behind her post-EastEnders success.
Katie brought up that a lot of actors find themselves struggling to build successful careers once leaving a soap, especially when playing one role for long, adding that Natalie was “one of the handful that have managed to go on and scale new heights outside of what should have been a role that defined you and stopped you working elsewhere”.
While Natalie admitted that it was “really hard” to step away from a role that defined her acting career, she felt “really proud” of being able to build an identity outside of it.
“It’s really hard to come out of a soap after all those years and listen, I think the big thing is I’ve always not minded being myself,” she said.
Natalie then continued to say that she thinks she was able to do this by appearing as herself in media like quiz shows and in interviews, separating herself from her soap persona.
She argued that a lot of actors tend to hide behind their characters.
“Absolutely right. But there are lots and lots of actors who, that’s why they act. They want to hide behind something, you know,” Natalie said. “And I often think because I fell into it and it was, you know, I was in the right place at the right time in 93. I was 10, like you said. And I fell into the role of Sonia, but I’ve kept it.”
In January 2025, the actor announced her departure from EastEnders. When reflecting on her time as Sonia and her decision to leave, she said it “was right to do so”, adding: “I was ready for a change after 32 years.”
In the soap, Sonia departed Walford along with her half-sister Bianca Jackson (Patsy Palmer) and daughters Bex and Julia for a new life in Bali, following her fiancé Reiss Colwell’s attempt to frame her for murder.
