Former EastEnders star Danny Hatchard has shared an update on the possibility of returning to the BBC One soap after fans called for his comeback.
The actor played Lee Carter between 2014 and 2017, and was at the centre of some major storylines at the time.
Since then, he’s popped back a few times, and has also appeared on shows such as Our Girl, Ridley Road, and The Madame Blanc Mysteries.
Jack Barnes//BBC
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In a TikTok video, he spoke about the difficulties of being an actor and all the rejections that happen in-between jobs.
In the comments, fans called for him to go back to EastEnders, and he said: “My future is outside of Walford. Not to say I won’t pop back from time to time!”
While Lee comes back to Albert Square now and again, his brother Johnny Carter has had three stints in Walford so far, each with a different face.
At first, he was played by Sam Strike, before being replaced by Ted Reilly two years later. He was reintroduced in 2024 with Charlie Suff taking over the role.
Jack Barnes
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Recently, Johnny got with Callum Highway after an affair behind Ben Mitchell’s back (in a sense, Ben is in prison) and was coerced into having sex with Tim Walton as part of a blackmail storyline.
Meanwhile, family matriarch Linda is currently having a ‘will they, won’t they’ romance with Max Branning, the biological father of her daughter Annie. We know he’s set to marry someone on New Year’s Day 2026, but could it be her?
Either way, if Lee were to return, there’s plenty of family drama waiting for him.
EastEnders airs on Mondays-Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer, where most episodes drop early at 6am ahead of their TV broadcast.
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