Emma Willis helps Matt perfect cockney accent for EastEnders

(Image credit: PA Archive/Press Association Ima)

EastEnders newcomer Matt Willis has said his TV presenter wife Emma helped him learn his EastEnders lines in bed and put on a cockney accent.

The McBusted star is currently on screen in the BBC soap, playing Stacey Branning's (Lacey Turner) boyfriend Luke Riley, and said he had been getting some help at home with his scenes from his wife, The Voice host Emma.

Matt told The Sun: "I always learn lines better when I have someone reading them back to me. We'd sit in bed and read EastEnders scripts.

"It was great fun and really helpful. Emma got into it. Her cockney accent is hilarious."

The former Busted star, who is about to go on tour with Busted/McFly supergroup McBusted, said: "I have got a pretty full-on year, but this was nice to do and I have the chance to come back if I want to.

"McBusted are touring until the end of July then we are talking about South America and Japan at the end of the year. I can't see myself doing more EastEnders in this year's schedule, but who knows what will happen next year."

 

Patrick McLennan

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.