Jo Joyner feels 'mumsy' and 'maternal' towards her EastEnders on-screen daughters Jacqueline Jossa and Lorna Fitzgerald
Jo Joyner reflected on watching her TV children, Jacqueline Jossa and Lorna Fitzgerald, grow up on EastEnders.
Jo Joyner feels "mumsy" and "maternal" towards her EastEnders on-screen daughters Jacqueline Jossa and Lorna Fitzgerald.
The 48-year-old actress is best known for playing the much-loved Tanya Branning, who has Lauren (Jacqueline Jossa), Abi (Lorna) and Oscar (originally Charlee and Neo Hall, now Pierre Counihan-Moullier) with her ex-husband, Max (Jake Wood).
And Jo said it was a "privilege" seeing Lorna - who was 10 when she started on the BBC soap and 21 when she left in 2018 - grow up on set.
In a Cameo video message to a fan called Katie - which was shared to Instagram by ee.spoilers20 - Jo said: "I love working with Lorna, and Jacs, I mean, they're just such great girls.
"Lorna's just a fantastic little actress and, obviously, I was working with her since she was tiny! So I kind of really watched her grow up on set, which was a real privilege, and I adore her.
"And Jacqueline is just fabulous. She's her own grown woman - they're all grown up now. It's very strange when you play a TV mum because you do feel slightly mumsy towards them and maternal about them.
"So it's a really lovely thing that you get to be part of, and a really special family. So I love them."
Jo also shared how much she loved working with Jake, 53, especially on explosive storylines, including a Christmas Day fallout with Max in 2007 when Tanya learned he had been having an affair with Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner).
Jo said: "I love working with Jake. I think he's just fantastic, and it was just very easy. We really worked in a similar way. I think we gave a good row, didn't we? We always had a good row, Max and Tanya."
Later in the message, she added: "I absolutely loved working with them, they're really great little actresses, Lorna and Jacs - they're not little anymore, they're grown women!
"And, yeah, Jake and I will always love working together. I think Max and Tanya were very special - the whole Branning family, a very special part of my life."
Amid calls for Tanya to return to EastEnders after seven years - with her last brief appearance coming in 2018 surrounding the emotional storyline of Abi's death - Jo said she cannot go back to the BBC soap at the moment due to other projects.
Jo - who spoke to the fan from the set of BBC's Shakespeare and Hathaway, where she is filming the upcoming series - said: "I always say about going back, never say never because you just never know.
"I'm grateful that Tanya isn't dead, that she's still in the story, and there's still a possibility of going back.
"It has been discussed recently, but I am very busy at the moment with other projects. So I couldn't go back in at the moment, anyway."
