Walford's Ganatra reveals character fears

EastEnders star Nitin Ganatra has admitted that he fears he is turning into his soap character Masood Ahmed.

The actor made his debut as Zainab Masood's (Nina Wadia) henpecked husband on the BBC One show in 2007 - and has recently noticed startling similarities between his real life and screen plots.

"Occasionally you start forgetting which one's real and which one's not," Ganatra told Virgin Media.

"I like to think I'm not really like Masood in terms of my wife and I have a fairly equal relationship, where I'm not henpecked and stuff like that," he continued.

"But I don't know whether I come home and I'm doing the same sort of thing really. You go to work and you snog a woman at work who's your on screen wife and then you come home and you think: 'What did I just do today?'

"It's the longest job I've ever had, and it's the longest character I've ever played and I think what's hard about it is there's so many different writers who have their own take on the character and you're the one who seems to be becoming the character as well. So it is odd."

Ganatra and Wadia were named best on screen partnership at the British Soap Awards last month.