HE’S gone from soap star, to an award-winning documentary maker and even a gameshow host – but Ross Kemp happily admits he owes it all to his big break on EastEnders.
And it's because the soap kick-started his five decades long career that he instantly said yes when telly chiefs asked him to revive his most famous role as Grant Mitchell.
This week viewers will see Ross, 60, step back into Albert Square, along with several other show icons, as part of the show’s sensational 40th anniversary celebrations.
He said: “I always felt like I owed them.
“I always felt I wouldn’t have been able to have gone on and done all my other shows — the documentaries, going to Afghanistan and travelled the world — without EastEnders.
“I wouldn’t have been able to get my foot in the door as a working class boy from Essex.
“I just wouldn’t have got those opportunities if it hadn’t have been for my time spent on the soap.
“I joined the show just five years after it began, and then I stayed with it for almost ten years — and that was just life-changing for me.”
He added: “The way in which (show boss) Chris Clenshaw approached me was very, very lovely.”
Ross is reminded of just how many opportunities EastEnders has given him by the fact he is juggling his return to the show with making a new documentary about the Mafia in Britain alongside hosting BBC gameshow Bridge Of Lies.
As if that weren’t enough, he has also agreed to front a special hour-long documentary celebrating the four decades since EastEnders launched on February 19, 1985.
He was reminded just how fast-paced it is to be back on the set of a busy soap, comparing the speed and intensity to making some of his grittiest documentaries in war-torn or drug-ravaged nations.
Naturally, he isn’t giving much away about what happens while he is back in EastEnders, though he will admit that Grant’s stay in Walford is a relatively brief one.
Ross teases: “I’m only back for a short period of time but it’s pretty impactful.
“He certainly comes back with bang — they didn’t have time to drop me in gently.
“There’s no soft landing if you’ve been part of that inner circle on EastEnders.
“People said to me, ‘Did you get a chance to catch up with people?’ And I said, ‘Not really’, because you’re on a rollercoaster.
“From the moment you get on the set it’s like, you’re off!”
There are still plenty of people on the set that Ross acted with back in the day, namely Steve McFadden as his brother Phil, Letitia Dean as his ex wife Sharon Watts and Gillian Taylforth as his one-time sister-in-law Kathy Beale.
Many of the crew are also still there all these years later.
Like the show itself, his character Grant was very much a product of the Eighties, despite being more closely associated with the Nineties.
The character was created by writers Michael Ferguson and Richard Brammel in 1989, although Grant didn’t actually set foot on the square until February 22, 1990.
To some the twenty-something, ex-army boy was a sexy, rough diamond, to others he was a bit of a caveman.
Either way, he was very much a product of his age and an instantly popular character with show devotees.
So does Ross think such a character could be launched on EastEnders in 2025?
Or does he have too many traits of toxic masculinity?
He said: “We’ve all changed haven’t we?
“He would be different now and he is different now.
“People had a lot of attitudes back then that we’d now consider to be toxic.
“You forget how different things were.
“We were all driving Escorts, there was no internet and people were still using payphones.
“But Grant isn’t ‘toxic masculinity’ to me.
“The way I played him was as a man who had PTSD after going to the Falklands.
“To some degree he’s a victim of his environment as much as anybody else.
“He’s certainly masculine, but I don’t think he’s toxic.”
He’s certainly masculine, but I don’t think he’s toxic
Ross Kemp
But for Ross, that’s one of the magic ingredients of EastEnders — the fact that the soap has tracked and reflected all the changes in society.
In many ways, its actively helped to change attitudes, too.
In the documentary he has made to accompany the 40th anniversary, he looks at how they tackled everything form gay relationships and HIV to domestic violence and sexual abuse.
He said: “It’s mirrored society.
“EastEnders has had a massive impact and tackled so many subjects.
“It’s done more to educate society than any government campaign.
“I admire Coronation Street — and I was actually in Emmerdale — but what EastEnders did was bring really gritty drama into our homes.
“I mean, for the first couple of weeks people didn’t know what to make of it and then all of a sudden it just went off like a rocket.
“And obviously the episode with Den and Angie and the divorce papers (Christmas Day 1986), I don’t think that will ever be eclipsed in British TV history.”
During his first stint on Albert Square, from 1990 to 1999, Grant certainly contributed to the long line of epic moments that will go down in EastEnders folklore.
His 1994 Queen Vic showdown with brother Phil after he slept with first wife Sharon — known as Sharongate — was watched by a staggering 25million people.
Then his second marriage to Tiffany, played by Martine McCutcheon, came to a tragic end on New Year’s Eve 1998, when they had another bust-up and Grant’s stepfather Frank Butcher accidentally ran her over as she fled the Queen Vic.
Grant returned for another stint in Walford from 2005 to 2006, before brief appearances in 2016 and 2022.
But Ross has seen his work outside of the square grow and grow in between, including his Sky show, Ross Kemp On Gangs, which bagged a Bafta.
There then followed Ross Kemp In Afghanistan, Ross Kemp In Search Of Pirates, Ross Kemp: Battle For The Amazon and Ross Kemp: Extreme World, to name just a few.
In 2022 he was back in the limelight for a different reason when The Sun exclusively revealed he was making a documentary about the Titanic.
He nearly went down to the wreck in the doomed Titan submersible that imploded in 2023 killing all five occupants.
Fortunately, Ross’s production team deemed it unsafe and changed their plans before filming began.
Now he’s still making documentaries and recently delivered Sky History show Mafia And Britain — a chronicle of Italian mobsters’ surprising links to the UK.
So after all these years, does Ross think that the British public finally distinguish between him and Grant, or do they merge them into a single hardman pastiche?
I’ve spent more time on TV as Ross Kemp than I did as Ross Kemp playing Grant Mitchell
Ross Kemp
He sounds unfazed as he replies: “I don’t actually know.
“It’s interesting because I’ve spent more time on TV as Ross Kemp than I did as Ross Kemp playing Grant Mitchell.
“But whether they make the distinction is entirely up to the viewer.
“What’s interesting is that, particularly young people know me best for making documentaries around the world in Gaza, or Iraq, and I think those shows changed a lot of people’s perceptions of me.
“I’ve made 125 docs — it’s a lot.
“I wouldn’t say they’ve all been brilliant, but most of them have been pretty good.
“And I’ve had a number of dramas outside of EastEnders and I was at ITV for almost five years.
“And whenever I go around the country I get called Ross by members of the public more than I get called Grant — but I suspect that may change back over the next couple of weeks.”
Poor Grant – he may have treated downtrodden wife Sharon like a piece of trash, but no one expected her to fall for his hardman brother Phil.
Grant found out about the 1992 fling two years later after a taped confession aired in The Vic which led to one hell of a showdown fistfight between the balding brothers.
Moody Michelle Fowler could never understand what best friend Sharon saw in Grant until, of course, she did – leading to the obligatory soapland one-night stand, getting pregnant, and her fleeing Walford for South Africa in 1995.
Oh Tiff. Her marriage to Grant was beset with rows, chaos, affairs and even violence right from the start.
And then it culminated in THAT New Year’s Eve fight in 1998 over daughter Courtney, whereupon she was mowed down by a car driven by Frank Butcher and died.
Cue the duff duffs.
Never actually aired in an episode, a video of Grant and Phil dancing to Kung Fu Fighting in the Queen Vic was exclusive to 1998 VHS special The Mitchells: Naked Truths. Watch it at your peril.
Phil just couldn’t take it when it turned out Grant had seduced his wife Kathy – so they had a huge row escaping from a robbery – and their car plunged into the Thames in 1999. Of course.
Shocking though it sounds, good old, dependable Jane actually had an affair with Grant with a lot of bonking in 2006.
Then Ian found out – and he wasn’t happy at all.
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