News from Walford way today includes Steve John Shepherd revealing that he loves playing the role of baddie Michael Moon, and Nina Wadia on how she broke down during filming recently.

First, Steve made his remarks about playing devious Michael to the PA when he was asked if his character was going to soften up a bit now he’s going to be a dad.

Steve said, “I think I’m probably just going to be mean to people, which is what I specialise in.”

And when asked if it ever got boring to play “a bad boy”, Steve said, “Not if it’s pretend, it’s fine. It can be a lot of fun really.”

However, as mentioned above, Steve’s EastEnders co-star Nina Wadia – who plays Zainab Masood – doesn’t always find it easy to play a bad-guy type role, and she told viewers of Lorraine yesterday that she recently burst into tears during filming.

Nina was referring to filming the scenes in which her character confesses that she deliberately sent Yusef Khan into the fire at the B&B…

We’ll see that drama begin tonight, and of course, the confession has a huge impact on Zainab’s family, and primarily on Tamwar (Himesh Patel) and Afia (Meryl Fernandes) of course.

Of the scenes, Nina said, “We were filming mid-January, and I suddenly had a massive breakdown in front of everyone! It was really embarrassing.

“I just cried in the middle of a scene, I just absolutely burst into tears. It was Zainab talking about what had happened, and then I just uncontrollably couldn’t stop and it was horrible.

“Luckily Nitin [Ganatra] and Marc [Elliott], who play Masood and Syed, were there. They literally just took me aside, sat with me and calmed me down.

“I apologised to the director, because I physically couldn’t stop crying.”

She added, “Zainab’s been living with this for a few months now and she finally can’t take it anymore, so it all comes out, and it comes out in the worst way possible, in front of everyone.

“I think she probably would have liked to confess to Masood privately first, but she didn’t get a chance.

“It all has gone very wrong for her since Christmas. But I’m hoping, I’m really hoping, at some point they get her and Masood back together.”

EastEnders continues tonight on BBC1.