There wasn’t a dry eye in the house last night when Lee Carter Ubered his way out of Albert Square for good!
His tearful departure meant that viewers had to wave goodbye to the scrummy actor Danny-Boy Hatchard, who had played the troubled soldier for the last three years.
In the emotional episode, EastEnders addicts saw Lee return to Albert Square to explain to his dad Mick why had decided to leave home, before having a tearjerking exchange with Whitney saying he had to leave her behind.
After the episode aired, Danny-Boy took to Twitter to thank his fans for their ongoing support for him as he played out Lee’s struggle with mental health.
Little video for everyone. Thank you! xxx
.@TeamEECarter .@LoveForDannyBoy pic.twitter.com/DdmyB98hle
— Danny Hatchard (@danboy) February 18, 2017
In a video clip he said: “These past three years you have been amazing, really, really amazing.
“I’ve had an incredible time at EastEnders helping create Lee as a character and helping bring awareness to mental health.
“It’s been a real honour and I couldn’t have done it without your support.”
As soon as the ‘duf duf’ sounded, fans were fast to heap praise on the young actor on social media.
“That episode had me in tears, going to miss lee”, one wrote, while another added, “Can’t believe @danboy has left, going to miss him Lee was such a great character #endofanera #eastenders.”
Speaking just before Christmas, when his character considered taking his life, Danny-Boy explained that he was proud to be playing such a challenging role.
“It was always going to be a mental health storyline and I knew that from the start, I think that was the general idea of bringing Lee into the family in the first place,” Danny-Boy explained.
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“Lee’s a young lad and with young men, they struggle to voice their feelings and open up. It’s worse because they don’t confide in people and they bottle it up.”
“I want to make sure it isn’t just something that happens and then it all gets better for Lee after that because that isn’t the reality.”
He said in another interview: “It’s about trying to find a healthy balance because mental illness isn’t just something that goes away.
“And I think that’s what the general feeling is for Lee after that. He needs to find himself, he needs to find a healthy balance so he can move forward with his life and that will cause certain things to happen.”
He admitted that tackling the role has been challenging but he had felt supported by the cast and crew all the way.
“Yeah it’s been tough,” he said. “This is my job so I have to detach myself away from it personally and approach it in a professional way.
“I don’t feel alone working on this because I’ve got the EastEnders team here who have been brilliant with my research and the writing and the directing.”