Natalie Cassidy feels 'free' after she quit EastEnders
Natalie Cassidy left EastEnders in April 2025 to pursue other projects, and she said it is "freeing".
Natalie Cassidy says leaving EastEnders is "freeing".
The 42-year-old actress made her last appearance as Sonia Fowler in the hit BBC soap during the April 17 episode when her alter ego left Walford for Bali with her daughters Rebecca "Bex" Fowler (Jasmine Armfield) and Julia Fowler, and her sister Bianca Jackson (Patsy Palmer), and a reason for Natalie saying goodbye to the show is that the job took over her "whole life".
Natalie - who is the cover star of the November issue of Prima magazine - explained to the publication: "It’s been freeing leaving EastEnders. I feel liberated and just happy.
"Albert Square will always hold a place in my heart, and I love it there. There could be a storyline where I come back for a week – those things are great.
"But it took up a lot of time. I used to be learning lines in the evening, and that’s gone now.
"And then I’d be up at six in the morning. You’re not a scaffolder or a heart surgeon, but it did take a long time, whereas now, my evenings are free, unless I’m recording a podcast at home.”
Natalie - who played National Health Service (NHS) nurse Sonia, on and off, for 32 years - also decided to leave because she was in her 40s, and also wanted to pursue other projects.
She added: "I know it’s a bit of a cliche, but I think turning 40 is a milestone. I think you know who you are, you know who your friends are, and where you are in life. You don’t want any rubbish.
"And for me, having been in this business for such a long time, I just needed to be free and be open to everything else.
"EastEnders is a brilliant job, but when you’re there, you’re chained. And that’s not a bad thing, because it’s regular money. You know where you are and what you’re doing.
"But you haven’t got any time to plan anything else, so it does take over your whole life. For me, I just knew I needed to be brave, and I needed to break free from that to sit and go, ‘What else is going to come?’”
The star - who joined EastEnders in 1993, left in 2007, before making a brief comeback between 2010 and 2011, and then returned in 2014 - said it felt "amazing" that she got to glam herself up after leaving the soap.
Natalie explained: "It was amazing when I got to reinvent myself after leaving EastEnders.
"Sonia isn’t the most glamorous of characters, bless her, but I wanted to stay true to her character, so I never got extensions put in or dyed my hair.
"She was just a worker who didn’t have a lot of money and worked for the NHS. But coming away, and breaking free, I just thought, ‘I want to be glam. I want to wear coloured nails. And just feel like me.'"
And Natalie joked that her frown lines from when she played a "sad" and "depressed" Sonia as part of storylines have now disappeared.
She quipped: "I do feel like my face has changed a little since leaving EastEnders, because I was quite sad and depressed when I was playing Sonia, or angry all the time.
"So I feel like my frown lines have sort of faded away, which is quite nice!”
The November 2025 issue of Prima is now on sale.
