Danny Dyer first burst onto screens as Mick Carter in 2013, kicking off a new chapter on EastEnders as a new family took over as landlords of The Queen Vic.

Twelve years on, Dyer has since left the soap but has reminisced on the good days he spent filming. In an upcoming episode of ITV’s The Assembly, featuring unseen questions with Dyer, Gary Lineker, David Tennant and Jade Thirlwall, the actor opened up on one of his favourite moments playing Mick.

Reflecting on one of his first storylines, in which Mick’s son Johnny Carter (then played by Sam Strike) came out as gay, Dyer explained: “It was done in such a beautiful way.

“Because whatever I represented at the time, being an alpha male or whatever. Usually when someone comes out as being gay in a soap, they go crazy and they kill someone – like Ben Mitchell did it, and then he killed Heather.”

He continued: “The truth is this. [Johnny] said ‘I’m gay’ and I went, ‘Come here, I love you.’ And that was it.

“I had many, many letters. Many messages from men that came out the next day. So that was important to me, the platform you can reach if you do it right. You can reach people and sort of change their lives, you know what I mean? It doesn’t happen all the time.

“I would say soap operas are soap operas for a reason and a lot of storylines you get are quite s**t. But now and again you can reach an audience that’s important. So that was probably my favourite.”

Read more:

Danny Dyer says EastEnders producer “didn’t like the Carters” following soap exit
EastEnders’ Laura Doddington teases potential arrival of Nicola Mitchell’s unseen sister
The new unseen episode of The Assembly features additional content with all the famous faces who took part, following an impressive launch for ITV.

Since the series began, it has reached five million viewers and is currently among the most-watched series on ITVX.

The Assembly: Unseen will be released on ITVX on Sunday 11th May and will air on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player on Sunday 18th May.

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