EastEnders' Phil Mitchell will be a "changed man" when he returns to Walford later this month.
Steve McFadden as Phil Mitchell
The bald business owner - portrayed by Steve McFadden - was last seeing fleeing Albert Square for Italy with his wife Sharon (Letitia Dean) earlier this year after he underwent life-saving liver surgery but the soap's boss Sean O'Connor has teased the bad boy will make an explosive return over the next few weeks in a bid to save his family from a "crisis."
Speaking to the Metro.co.uk, he said: "Phil returns in a moment of crisis for the Mitchells. But he is a changed Phil from the exhausted lion that left the square.
"Steve McFadden is a mesmerising actor. Every scene he does with absolute commitment and conviction. It's amazing to watch how he does it. He's great at rage and pent up aggression, but he was at his most moving after the death of Peggy. And when he told Sharon that he loved her just before he was taken away for his liver transplant on Christmas Day was so touching.
"It has been very rewarding finding fresh material for Phil. His days of being a hard man are coming to an end and he has had a real wake-up call after the transplant. He knows that he has a second chance now and it's given him food for thought. Has he had a good life? Can he right the wrongs of the past? And even if he wants to, does he have the time to do it?"
Although Sean is remaining tight lipped on what he has in store for Phil, he recently teased that a big event will rock the residents of Walford in the coming months in a storyline that has never been approached by a soap before in the history of UK television.
He said recently: "The ambition is for 'EastEnders' to be the best British soap opera. Sometimes, in order to make that happen, you have to work hard on the foundations of what the show is and that's what we've been concentrating on since I arrived in Walford.
"But what we are planning will be electric - but I'm not going to say how! It will involve all of the main characters - both new and legacy characters, nobody has been left out. We're all very excited about it. No show has ever attempted what we're planning to do in the next few months. It's massively ambitious - and crucially- it's something that only 'EastEnders' would or could do. And that's the challenge I keep making to the writers; we need to tell stories that only 'EastEnders' could do. I love our brother and sister shows and they do what they do brilliantly. But we do something different."
Tagged in Letitia Dean Steve McFadden