Davood Ghadami "felt like a fraud" when filming ‘EastEnders’ knife-crime scenes.
The 37-year-old actor’s alter-ego Kush Kazemi lost his brother Shakil Kazemi (Shaheen Jafargholi) as a result of knife-crime and Davood admitted having family members of real-life victims on set for filming was an eye-opening experience.
Speaking about Shakil’s funeral scenes on Monday’s (06.07.20) episode of ‘Secrets From The Square’, he explained: "That was really surreal, doing that. We had to carry the coffin, and we had – left and right of us – people who had to do that for real for their own loved ones.
"Being watched by people who had gone through it for real… It must’ve been really hard for them. That’s something that, you know, you can’t really prepare for it. It’s very difficult. On one hand, you go, ‘I feel like a fraud’ because I’m walking down here pretending that this happened to me, and I’m worried that we’re doing it wrong, basically. I’m doing it wrong, not necessarily the show, or maybe it is – maybe this is going wrong."
However, he revealed that the families were grateful to the soap for showing the reality of knife-crime.
Davood said: "And then on the other hand, you think this is great that we’re giving the opportunity – because that was the overriding reaction from those people: That we’re grateful that it’s happening, that you’re showing us for real – this is the reality of it."