EastEnders star Jessie Wallace has revealed how she made a huge change to her most iconic line as Kat Slater.
Back in 2001, Kat famously blew the lid off a huge Slater family secret when she revealed to her ‘sister’ Zoe (Michelle Ryan) that she was actually her mother in an episode watched by 19 million viewers.
The pair came to blows in the street when Kat tried to stop Zoe from going ahead with her plan to leave Walford and move to Spain with her uncle Harry.
After Zoe told Kat she couldn’t tell her what to do as ‘you ain’t my muvva’, Kat screamed back: ‘Yes I ammmm!’
Jessie reflected on the moment, which went down in soap history, on co-star Lacey Turner’s new BBC podcast We Started Here.
Telling of how the scene was originally conceived very differently, she said: ‘Tony Jordan [a writer on the show] had written it as I whispered it and I was like, no, if I’ve been holding this for 18 years, I’m going to scream it out.’
That was not the only big change made to the storyline, as Jessie also confirmed: ‘Originally Kat had Zoe when she was 12, but John Yorke [the executive producer at the time] changed it to she was 14, so now I’ve got to carry around the fact that Kat’s two years older than me. So I’m 54 on screen!’
In the scenes that followed, Kat revealed that she had been raped by Harry, and he was Zoe’s father.
Jessie said she was ‘so honoured that they gave that storyline for me to carry’.
She said: ‘It was hard. It was really hard. And this is back in the day when we used to get like sacksful of fan mail, and the majority were teenage girls that was going through the same thing or been through the same thing.. that were relating to Kat and coming to me for help.
‘But I’m an actor and it had to be passed on to the NSPCC, which was really tough. But it was so yeah, the impact it made.’
The star also called for Michelle to return as Zoe, having last been seen on screen in 2005.
‘I’d love it if she came back,’ she said. ‘I think it would be great for Kat and Zoe.
‘I think it would be brilliant if she just turned up and went, “Hello, Mum!”‘
Michelle recently hinted she was ready for a Walford comeback.
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After reuniting with her on-screen aunt Kasey Ainsworth, who played Little Mo, she reflected on some EastEnders memories as she shared a picture on Instagram.
When one fan in the comments asked if she would consider a return, she said: ‘Never say never!’
She also said: ‘That’s for the producers to decide,’ in response to a comment that stated her return would be ‘epic’.
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The first episode of We Started Here is available to listen to on all podcast platforms from Tuesday, January 28, or by clicking here.
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