EastEnders star Navin Chowdhry admitted he had no reservations about portraying a domestic abuser in the BBC soap – but he was worried about how it would affect his kids
EastEnders icon Navin Chowdhry has confessed he faced problems dropping his kids off at school after portraying Nish Panesar in a domestic violence storyline.
Appearing on BBC’s The One Show this week to discuss the impact of the plot on his real life, Navin admitted: “It is a lot of fun. As a family there’s a lot of trust and a lot of love which makes us able to go down some really dark roads, especially with this character.”
Presenter Vernon Kay wondered: “When you’re out and about, the public’s reaction, what’s that like? With you being a baddie?”
Navin explained: “When I first got the scripts, the first time it got physical and there was a lot of domestic violence associated with this character, I went to the producers and I said, ‘I’m up for doing it because it’s an important story, let’s do it, but how am I going to do the school run? How am I going to go and take my kids to school when this man has been doing what he’s been doing to Suki and the other women?’
“But touch wood up until now I’ve been very lucky, everyone’s been very kind and I guess the expression is love to hate.”
Meanwhile, Navin’s co-star Balvinder Sopal, who plays Suki, had a teaser for the show’s 40th anniversary.
She said: “We can promise that it’s going to be exciting and it’s going to be high-stakes with lots of drama, emotional drama. But we are also just as much in the dark as much as the public, so we’re finding out as we go along. But it’s EastEnders – we’re not going to let you down, are we?”
Navin has previously explained his mum worked for a domestic violence charity, which gave him some real-life experience with the difficult topic.
“My mum ran a charity for over twenty years for women of domestic abuse, so my mum spent her life protecting people like Kat from people like Nish,” he said.
Adding earlier this year: “So these are stories and human beings that I guess I grew up with what with my mum having to be on call and saving people like this. We had a scene earlier in the week where Nish kicks Kat and her children out of her house. He thinks better of it, but this is what this man is capable of.”
