Danny-Boy Hatchard is determined to make sure his suicide plot on ‘EastEnders’ is played out realistically.
The 25-year-old actor has played Lee Carter on the BBC soap since 2014, and has said he worked closely with mental health charities as well as the show’s writers to make sure the former soldier’s current storyline – which sees him contemplate suicide after battling with depression – is carried out with justice.
He told The Sun Online: "I want to make sure it isn’t just something that happens and then it all gets better for Lee after that because that isn’t the reality.
"It’s about trying to find a healthy balance because mental illness isn’t just something that goes away.
"And I think that’s what the general feeling is for Lee after that. He needs to find himself, he needs to find a healthy balance so he can move forward with his life and that will cause certain things to happen."
And Danny-Boy admits that the scenes were hard to film, but he doesn’t "feel alone" because the rest of the cast and crew were there to help him get through the harrowing story.
He added: "Yeah it’s tough. This is my job so I have to detach myself away from it personally and approach it in a professional way.
"I don’t feel alone working on this because I’ve got the ‘EastEnders’ team here who have been brilliant with my research and the writing and the directing and Sean’s been great.
"I think it’s a collaborative process. Although I am the picture of it and what you see with Lee, there’s been a lot of work behind that and that makes me as an actor feel a lot more comfortable with how I approach these situations."
Meanwhile, Lorna Fraser – the media adviser for the Samaritans charity – has praised the show’s bosses for working with them to create a story that was told "responsibly and sensitively".
She said: "We were really happy that EastEnders got in touch with us very early on in developing this element of Lee’s storyline because it is a subject that should be handled responsibly and sensitively.
"And so we’ve been working over several months with their researchers and their writers giving advice on various things and this is where soaps can really come into their own in reaching a wide audiences with some really important messages such as Lee’s situation and showing that through a culmination of life pressures, pressures that can particularly affect men that he’s reached a very difficult point."
Danny-Boy Hatchard determined for realistic EastEnders plot
