Will Vincent Hubbard return to EastEnders? Richard Blackwood speaks out
It feels like Richard Blackwood has unfinished business on the square
Fans of Richard Blackwood's EastEnders character, Vincent Hubbard, were probably left feeling a little unsatisfied with how his three-year stint on the soap came to end.
Vincent, having debuted in the live 2015 30th-Anniversary episode, left the Square under mysterious circumstances in 2018 as he was last seen at gunpoint with a corrupt policeman seemingly about to kill him- something that Phil Mitchell had some involvement in, of course.
Since then, he hasn't been seen or heard from with Kim Fox being left a note that indicated he had left her. But with Blackwood now appearing on Channel 4 soap, Hollyoaks, as Felix Westwood, does this now mean that a resolution for the character, and his fans, is even less likely?
RadioTimes.com has been chatting to Blackwood and had that subject on our minds- and it doesn't sound promising...
How did you feel about your EastEnders exit and would you go back to it?
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"I would say I’ve come to a close with EastEnders. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time there and they genuinely looked out for me. I’m very loyal, if I had offers while I was there I would say no as EastEnders was my priority. I had a great time and they decided they would stop the character when they did, In fairness, I was also at a place where I wasn’t sure how much more we could get out of Vincent; I always believe you should leave a situation before people need you to. The way it was starting to go for me, I knew it was going down a road where I didn’t know how much more we could get. So I thought maybe it's for the best as well.
"Now I’m here, my loyalty is Hollyoaks. If anything EastEnders got me to the place where I’m ready for Hollyoaks, not to discredit it. I was there for three years working on a fast pace show having to bring a performance daily. EastEnders is tough. It's five cameras, 14 scenes a day and it is knackering. When I came here, it's not five cameras. I appreciated the time you could take on a scene, it didn’t feel rushed. It allowed me to experiment more which I'm grateful for. My loyalty 100 per cent is with Hollyoaks now."
How is your Hollyoaks character, Felix, different to Vincent?
"It’s so weird, I tried very hard to make sure I didn’t bring Vincent to Felix Westwood. When you’re used to playing a character for so long, it's hard to shake it off. In the two years since I left, I did a few plays that allowed me to shake off Vincent and to find my identity as Richard - then as an actor again. Felix is far more humorous than Vincent was.
"When Vincent was bouncing off Kim, she was the joker and he would finish the joke by being the straight man. What I love with Felix is that he is dangerous, but he’s so funny; switching between the two feels good. One minute you’ve got people laughing, and I’ve got that comic timing from stand-up, but when it's time to get serious or emotional, I can show Felix as a rounded character. That’s the big difference for me as Vincent was quite a closed book."
Read the full interview with Richard Blackwood about his new Hollyoaks role here.
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