EastEnders star Steve McFadden has spoken about his character Phil Mitchell’s battle with depression, which will reach a tragic climax next week when the troubled mechanic decides to take his own life as part of the EastEnders 40th anniversary.
Phil has struggled over the course of the past year due to events including the breakdown of his marriage to Kat, son Ben’s incarceration, and Sharon’s newfound relationship with Teddy.
As his illness has become more severe, he has started to suffer from hallucinations and has seen visions of his younger self and family - brother Grant and parents Peggy and Eric.
Taking Peggy’s ‘advice’, he has now decided to end his life, using a bullet given to him by his dying father. In next week’s 40th anniversary episodes, Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) uncovers her neighbour’s desperate plan and alerts Phil’s friend and lodger Nigel Bates (Paul Bradley) and his brother Grant (Ross Kemp), who is back in Walford.
Says McFadden, “There are quite a few psychological things going on for Phil, like his age, his lack of self-worth, and the way he feels his usefulness and value have diminished.
“He's had all the classic reasons that anybody would find themselves at a low point, and over the past few months, we've gone up through the gears to get to this stage of crisis.
“However, a couple of weeks before, Phil has fallen down the eight-foot pit in the Arches and badly bashed his head, so I think it becomes physiological as well. Everything has come together to take Phil to the point where he decides to take his own life.”
Sharing his thoughts on the emotive storyline, the 65-year-old actor adds, “It felt to me like this was a valid and worthwhile story to tell.
“I don't talk about my work very often because I believe there's an alchemy to acting and that it's a magical process, so I don't want to spoil it by deconstructing it too much.
“What happens with me is that I try to emotionally connect with a story as much as possible, and it felt like I connected with this one a lot. Some stories ask more of you than others, and I hope I've given back as much as it asked of me.
“Every story we do, whether it's a funny one to entertain or Phil being hostile and threatening, has its own validity, and I don't like to have an opinion in case it gets in the way of my work. With this one, something felt particularly worthwhile to me.”
In a change to the usual format, next week’s four episodes of EastEnders, airing Monday to Thursday, will all be set on 19th February - the exact date that the soap first aired in 1985.
In addition to Phil’s tragic decline, stories taking centre-stage will include Billy and Honey’s wedding, the unmasking of Cindy Beale’s attacker, and Denise making a choice between suitors Jack Branning and Ravi Gulati - courtesy of a viewer vote. And, of course, there will be a much-hyped explosion that tears through The Queen Vic.
Wednesday’s episode will be an hour-long special, while Thursday’s episode will be live.
McFadden is also celebrating his own anniversary on the soap, having been a fixture in Walford for 35 years.
Reflecting on his career in EastEnders, he reveals, “When I first decided to become an actor, people in my life couldn't believe it because this was not on the cards, to put it mildly!
“Anyway, a mate took me to the Royal Shakespeare Company because his sister was an actor. I watched the play, and I thought, 'This is absolutely fantastic, this is what I want to do, but not here because this isn't my arena.'
“I remember saying to him, 'I want to do something that the people down the market will talk about and the kids in the school playground will talk about in their lunch break, like I used to talk about Minder and The Sweeney in my lunch break.
“I wanted to do that kind of work, and that's what has happened. I've ended up where I wanted to be without really knowing it, which is lovely.”
EastEnders airs Monday to Thursday at 7.30pm on BBC One. You can also watch episodes early when they are released at 6am on BBC iPlayer.
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