Nina Wadia quit 'EastEnders' because she was turning into her "angry" character, and her husband wanted his wife back.
Nina Wadia as Zainab
The 51-year-old star portrayed Zainab Masood on the BBC One soap from 2007 to 2013, and she departed seven years ago because she was becoming more and more like the "complicated" character, and was also missing seeing her children growing up.
She said: "It’s not like you just go to set, do your work, and then you come home, when you’re home you’re learning lines for the next day, it’s all-consuming so I kind of needed a break from it all.
"Also, I was turning into my character, to which my husband amazingly said, ‘I don’t like the woman so can I have my wife back?’
"That can happen, when you play a character for a very long time you sort of start to melt into the character a bit, so you need to get out.
"And she wasn’t a particularly pleasant woman, she’s a complicated, angry woman and I was turning into an angry woman and that’s not me. I’m a positive person! So that was not fun"
The actress - who is married to Raiomond Mirza - admitted she wasn't "unhappy" on the soap, and while the soap's bosses didn't want her to leave the show, she was keen to be "challenged and pushed a bit more" in her career.
She added to Express.co.uk: "I had a great time doing that show and it’s an iconic show to be a part of.
"They didn’t want me to leave, they loved the character and everything was going well, I had just got to a point as an actor where I’m just not one of those actors.
"I’m an actor who needs to be challenged and pushed a bit more, I missed the creativity of coming up with a new character, so it was a tough decision."
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