"Michael Moon (Steve John Shepherd)"

[Perdita]

EastEnders star Steve John Shepherd has revealed that playing his dark character Michael Moon was an easy transition for him.

Viewers will know that Michael is currently scheming to murder his estranged wife Janine Butcher (Charlie Brooks) with the help of Alice Branning (Jasmyn Banks).

However, tonight's episode will see the plan go wrong and a sequence of dramatic events soon follow.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast this morning (October 31), Shepherd said: "Michael is a functioning psychopath and he has a clinical lack of empathy. He doesn't really care what you think or feel.

"It is great to do because you get to purge all that dark stuff yourself. Maybe that is why he is quite popular with people because they vicariously dispel their dark yearnings. It has always come quite easily to me, curiously, that thing of finding the inner dark stuff."

With his final scenes due to be aired as Michael and Janine's feud reaches a conclusion, Shepherd also reflected on his three years on the show.

Michael explodes with anger after his plans go wrong
© BBC
Michael explodes with anger after things go wrong


He said: "It is brilliant fun but unbelievably hard work. It is the hardest job in show business because of the sheer volume, the amount of stuff you have to do, the amount of changes in emotion and the huge jumps - you might murder somebody in the morning and then win the lottery in the afternoon.

"You have to do this huge technical leap. It is brilliant training but very difficult."

When asked if he will always be remembered as Michael, Shepherd added: "It is always a risk but to not have played him would have been a mistake because I have really enjoyed it and I think and hope lots of people have enjoyed watching him.

"The fact that he may stick in the mind is possibly a good thing."

EastEnders airs tonight (October 31) at 7.30pm on BBC One.

[Perdita]

Steve John Shepherd has said that it was "difficult" to leave EastEnders but it was the "right" decision.

The actor played the villainous Michael Moon on the BBC One soap from 2010 to 2013. The character was killed off in November after he was murdered by wife Janine Butcher (Charlie Brooks).

"I loved working there," he told Digital Spy. "It was difficult, they work you hard there, but they have to because of the format and demand.

"I really enjoyed working with the people there, and learnt a lot about that particular craft of working with a multi-camera system. It's extremely challenging and taxing, you don't get much time at all."

He continued: "I really enjoyed playing Michael in a perverse way, he was great fun. The writers always gave me really nice storylines, and so I had a good time, but it was time to go.

"I left because I didn't want to run him down into nothing, but I wanted to retain his potency by ducking out."

Shepherd said that he wanted to make sure the character could not return in the future.

"I understand that if you really like a character then it's difficult [to leave for good]," he conceded. "It was difficult to say goodbye to him and have him killed, but it was right for me to do.

"I'm not saying anything about anyone else's characters or how they want to do stuff. I really enjoyed playing him so I could see why others would want to go back or leave the door open.

"They asked me if I wanted to come back and I said, 'No, I wouldn't' and that it had to be final, so they said, 'Right, then we'll kill you'. Which apparently is a compliment - it didn't feel like it at the time!"

Shepherd currently stars in Chris Thompson's play Albion, which follows the rise of the new far right in modern Britain. He plays Paul, the leader of the English Protection Army, who holds a karaoke night at The Albion, a local East End pub.

Speaking about the role, he said: "It's very different, it involved singing - or an attempt at singing in my part. It was interesting to inhabit someone whose views are so skewed. It's always nice to do theatre.

"When you're an actor you don't have the luxury of choosing things. Lots of us are jobbing actors and we go up for things and we either get them or don't get them.

"This was a very nice thing to get and to be offered. He is very different to Michael Moon, and that is quite nice because after three years of playing Michael it weighed heavy on the soul!"

Natalie Casey, Delroy Atkinson, Tony Clay, Paul Ham, Nicola Harrison and Dharmesh Patel also star in Albion, which runs at London's Bush Theatre until October 25.