Balvinder Sopal reveals importance of EastEnders co-stars' support on Strictly Come Dancing

Each year like clockwork, Strictly Come Dancing welcomes 15 celebrities from all corners of the entertainment world, and without fail, someone from EastEnders often stars on the show.

This year is no different, as Balvinder Sopal swaps Albert Square for Elstree, though it isn't the worst commute in the world! Balvinder along with her professional dance partner Julian Caillon have wowed audiences over the last five weeks and despite finding themselves in a dance-off, they're back raring to go, and are looking forward to the support.

Last weekend, EastEnders fans were delighted to spot Balvinder's co-stars, Navin Chowdhry and Shiv Jalota, in the audience cheering her on – which meant an awful lot to the Suki Panesar actress.

"It was just lovely, because obviously they play my on-screen family, and we are a family off-screen as well," Balvinder told RadioTimes.com in an exclusive interview.

"So it meant so much to have their support in the audience. My own family have come and that's been really lovely, and I actually thought I'd feel a little bit nervous having people I knew in the audience, but it's been the opposite.

"It's like they're an anchor. The kind of anchor you go, 'Great, I've got my people in the audience, somebody genuinely loves me. I'm just going to go out there and perform and feel strong and just have a nice time.'"

It was during Icons Week that Balvinder and Julian found themselves safe and avoided the dance-off, with Balvinder sharing that her former co-star Navin joked he was her lucky charm.

She continued: "[On] Saturday our names were called out first, so Navin's like, 'I'm your lucky mascot. I've got to come every week!'"

Julian echoed his partner's sentiments, noting that when his fiancé is in the audience, he always blows her kiss before the start of a performance.

"I just feel like it kind of settles and grounds you," he told RadioTimes.com. "I used to do it on tour as well, she would always come to see me when I was performing in theatres.

"She would tell me if she was sitting in the audience and when I'd start the show, I'd always look for her and then try and blow her a kiss.

"It's a real grounding kind of experience."

Balvinder and Julian are performing a Rumba for Halloween, with the actress admitting it's been the most difficult dance she's had to learn so far.

She told RadioTimes.com: "It all fell apart for me because we're learning the rumba, which is a very technically hard dance. You have to be very specific and I just wasn't getting it. It just felt really hard, it felt like a really tall task.

"The dances we've had in the past have been quite fun, bouncy, sort of lots of energy. And this is still energy, but it's very still and sort of strong still, kind of moves, and it just all fell apart for me. And actually, the dance only clicked yesterday afternoon. Literally, I just got it yesterday (29th October) afternoon."

The dancing duo will be performing to Stay by Shakespears Sister, which Sopal has described as a "dance with death".

"It's quite passionate actually and very different from anything you've seen from Jules and I," she said.

Strictly Come Dancing continues on BBC One and iPlayer on Saturday 1st November at 6:35pm.

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