The former Eastenders star on soap snobbery, her rumoured financial struggles and her new TV role playing a divorcee dating younger
“I’m enjoying the strong women characters coming my way at the moment,” says Tamzin Outhwaite. “There was a time where it felt like: ‘You’re not in your 30s any more and you’re not doing lead roles.’ But shows such as White Lotus and Succession have made people realise it’s really interesting watching older women on screen.”
Outhwaite, 53, may still be best known as Mel from EastEnders, but this autumn she’s playing two larger-than-life matriarchs: first as monstrous host Beverly in a revival of Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party at London’s Stratford East, then in Channel 5’s glamorous domestic thriller The Wives as Sylvie, a divorcee seeking sex with younger men on Tinder.
“I haven’t been on dating apps but I can imagine that’s quite a liberating thing,” says Outhwaite. “I don’t think I’ve played a character who’s quite so unashamedly herself.”…