Emer Kenny

EastEnders star and scriptwriter Emer Kenny, exposes her softer side, her hopes to follow strong leading actresses and some surprising dream jobs


Famous for playing hard-edged Zsa Zsa Carter in EastEnders, actress Emer Kenny is as far removed from her tough on-screen counterpart as you could expect when we meet her in the flesh at the BBC Elstree studios for our Rollacoaster shoot. A children’s TV show is being filmed on a neighbouring lot and kids run up to the soap actress looking at her in awe asking if she is, indeed, Zsa Zsa.  Kenny herself humbly smiles and talks to the kids who run around in excitement.
    “I’m a lot softer than Zsa Zsa,” she tells us.  “When she first came in she was very hard and really rude but as I played her I think she has softened up – which is good because playing that hard character all the time is actually quite wearing.”
    The character Zsa Zsa is one Emer knows better than anyone – not just because she has been playing her almost daily on EastEnders since January, but because she also wrote the character as one of the script writers for E20 (the online EastEnders spin-off) before casting for the part even began. With Zsa Zsa departing Albert Square in November, Emer is looking forward to getting into new projects and hopes to find new headstrong characters to play.
    “I like strong independent women,” she says, citing Hollywood’s leading ladies Sigourney Weaver, Helena Bonham Carter and Charlize Theron as inspiration. “Ripley in Alien – that’s a character that could have been a man, but it was better that she was a woman. And I like Sigourney because she’s really tall. And I’m tall. It’s one of those things I can’t change but maybe one day it will be an asset. Ripley – she’s statuesque, she’s Amazonian.” Indeed one of Emer’s “dream” characters to play is none other than Amazonian warrior princess Wonderwoman. “I’m not kidding you!” she says with a snort of excitement. “Or Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights.” Having told us she can do a great rendition of Run DMC’s It’s Tricky, is being a rapper another avenue Emer could explore if acting doesn’t work out? “I’m not going to be a rapper, no!” she laughs. That’s like my secret dream that no one is meant to know about – but now you do.”

[Originally published in Rollacoaster Issue 1, September 2010. Photography Andrew Woffinden.]