EastEnders' Kush Kazemi "will flip" and hit "breaking points" following his brother Shakil Kazemi's funeral.
Kush and Carmel Kazemi at Shaki's funeral
Davood Ghadami - who plays the market trader - has revealed the grief will eventually take its toll on his alter-ego, who has been concentrating on looking after his mother Carmel Kazemi (Bonnie Langford) following the fatal stabbing of his brother Shakil (Shaheen Jafargholi).
He told BANG Showbiz: "His role has been to support his role and it has helped him find his leafleting equivalent - a focus away from the tragedy.
"There's no way that someone can go through this and not let it touch upon everything that they do. Whether you think about it every hour or every minute.
"Kush has been through a lot of tragedy in his life anyway and it gets closer and closer to home every time. He can't just lock this away forever.
"He has been supporting his mum but at some point that will flip - and that is going to happen with Kush. There will be breaking points."
Bonnie admitted she is "proud" to be involved in the storyline - which will see relatives of real-life knife crime victims appear in Shaki's funeral episode on Friday (06.07.18) - and has promised fans they will see more of the perpetrator's family in future episodes.
She added: "Denny, Sharon's little boy, isn't necessarily in Shakil's group and he starts to get frightened because he is trying to grow up.
"It's that thing of when you're young, you feel invincible but then something happens to someone down the street and you realise that, 'Oh, I can't just fall over and get up again. I might not.'
"We also take a look at the perpetrator and his family and that will be interesting. It's not just a case of, 'He's done a bad thing, he's locked up, end of.'
"We go beyond that and what goes on next. This is a huge mistake for this boy - all this wrong has happened.
"How are we going to get to the point where out of all of these wrongs something right comes out of it?
"'EastEnders' isn't about showing people being perfect - it's about showing real life which isn't always pretty."
Shaki's special funeral episode airs on Friday (06.07.18) at 9:15pm on BBC One.
Tagged in Shaheen Jafargholi