A quick chat with EastEnders badman Don Gilet
EastEnders star Don Gilet, who plays killer Lucas, explains why he's scared to go shopping! You have been responsible for the deaths of two characters. Now, even worse, it looks like you might have killed Sugar. What has the reaction been? “I don’t know how I’m going to cope on the streets when people see me! No one’s attacked me yet, but I haven’t been to Tescos since that episode so we’ll soon find out. If I go to the hot meat aisle in the delicatessens, where I have to wait, and there’s no trouble, then I should be OK!” Do you think Lucas might kill again? “Listen, nobody’s safe! Lucas doesn’t want to do these things. He doesn’t haven’t any malice in his heart or want these people dead, he just sees it as the only way to put a stop to things.” When you joined in April 2008 did you have any idea he would turn into such a Jekyll and Hyde-style character. “No. Which I’m glad about because you don’t want to see that far ahead. It’s as fun for me to see how Lucas’s going to get out of it as it is everybody else. I suppose when it gets to the stage that there’s a momentum and people are dying, you know at some point the skeletons will fall out the cupboard. It’s just a matter of when...” There are rumours you are leaving. Is that true? “I’m happy for them to be rumours right now because that’s all it is. I’m just riding this thing, knowing full well that in terms of storyline it can only go on so far to be believable. Everyone’s got a timer on them. We’ll just have to wait and see how long they want me to keep killing for!” What do you enjoy doing off screen? “I love music. I used to do private parties, but now I DJ in my house. Being a DJ you’ve got to keep up to date with your music and I’m not that into the scene any more. I’ve still got lots of old school stuff so if people want a disco with Eighties or Nineties music I’ve got that, but you’ve got to stop your collection at some point and grow up. And everything’s got so high-tech now, you can do it all on computer - but nothing’s like vinyl!” And we are told you are a breakdancer? “This is on my early CV! Nitin Ganatra, who plays Masood, was a breakdancer as well. We might be in our 40s now, but some of us can still move! I’d never attempt breakdancing again, though. I always thought I was taking my life into my hands when I did it then, you try these things when you’re young, but now I think what was I doing could have gone so wrong!” But how great it’d be to see Lucas and Masood compete in a dance-off in the Queen Vic? “Nitin and I have done. It didn’t last long as we realised our bones are ageing and there are certain things we can’t do any more and walk away from!”
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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.
An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.