Where you’ve seen EastEnders’ Jess before – including in rival soap

The Carter reunion in EastEnders has been pretty messy thus far, hasn’t it?

With the announcement that Kellie Bright would be leaving her role as Linda Carter also came the news that her two missing children, Lee and Nancy would be returning for her exit, with Danny Hatchard and Maddy Hill reprising their roles.

Nancy arrived first and delivered an almighty shocker: she’s pregnant. Very pregnant. Then came Lee with the second bombshell: the baby is his.

No, ‘Enders weren’t going for an icky incest story; Nancy is acting as a surrogate for Lee and his girlfriend, Jess, who’d recently abandoned him…or so Lee said.

Linda dragged Lee away on a mission to locate Jess, though when they returned home, they found her waiting for them at Peacock Palace, and the truth of the situation became clear.

It was actually Lee who’d left Jess as his burgeoning drinking problem that developed after the presumed death of his dad, Mick Carter (Danny Dyer), had hit new heights, blocking her number in his phone and essentially abandoning her, leaving the Carter clan floored.

Who plays Jess in EastEnders?

Jess is played by Emma Lau, who soap fans will recognise as Hollyoaks’ Serena Chen-Williams.

The Chen-Williams family arrived in dribs and drabs before establishing themselves as a clan, with Serena arriving under her alter-ego, ‘Galaxy’ and instantly ensnaring Sid Sumner (Billy Price) with her charms.

The family had moved to the village to better support Serena’s athletics training, with her being a potentially Olympic-level competitor, though when she arrived, she was horrified to discover Sid had begun dating her half sister, Lizzie (Lily Best) and in a true showing of ‘sisters before misters’, she swore loyalty to her, rejecting Sid’s further romantic advances.

The family was shaken up upon the discovery that patriarch Dave (Dominic Power) was the secret father of established ‘Oaks legend, Maxine Minniver (Nikki Sanderson), and further rocked when Serena fell from a roof, seriously damaging the nerves in her leg and effectively ending her burgeoning athletic dreams.

She later dated Imran Maalik (Ijaz Rana), before discovering that her younger brother, Mason (Frank Kauer) had been radicalised by crazed incel Eric Foster (Angus Doughty), handing his laptop in to the police as his behaviour intensified.

Unable to reconcile with her brother or her wider family for continuing to support Mason, she left them and the village behind for a new life in Shanghai.

The family itself continued to crumble, Dave and Serena’s mum, Honour (Vera Chok) split up, and she left for London, with Mason and older brother Sam (Matthew McGivern) also leaving for pastures new.

Lizzie died after taking a dodgy pill, which set in motion the reveal that postman-turned-handyman Dave was actually a notorious assassin who returned to his murderous gangster-y ways to gain revenge for the death of his daughter.

Yes. Really.

He wound up dead, too, while uncle Ethan Williams (Matthew James Bailey) remained the last of the original line-up standing – until he was pushed off a balcony and killed by his bride-to-be Sienna Blake (Anna Passey) on their wedding day.

Outside of soap land, Emma has carved an impressive career out for herself.

Emma took on the role of Miranda in The Tempest at the 2023 Salisbury International Arts Festival and also starred in Glacier at the Old Fire Station in Oxford.

On the big screen, she played the role of Kiko in the Netflix film The School for Good and Evil and had a recurring role as Amelia in the Paramount+ series The Agency, before notching the role of Beth Cope in the 2025 thriller film Past Life.