Sam Womack "struggled" with "sensationalist" storylines on ‘EastEnders’.
The 46-year-old star played out a controversial baby swap storyline on the BBC One soap in 2011, and while the Ronnie Mitchell star admits the plot – in which her character swapped her dead child James Branning with Kat Moon’s (Jessie Wallace) newborn son, Tommy Moon, after the youngster died of sudden infant death syndrome within days of being born – was "hard to act", she found it "enjoyable".
When asked about the baby swap plot, she said: "It was hard to act but it was also enjoyable as it was such a meaty storyline.
"Generally, though, I prefer more realistic issues and struggle with the sensationalist ones."
Sam’s time on ‘EastEnders’ came to an end over the new year in 2017 when Ronnie was killed off alongside her sister Roxy Mitchell (Rita Simons), and the star was disappointed her alter-ego died because she was "hoping to go back" onto the soap at some point.
She said: "It was hard to have a character killed that I loved and I was hoping to go back at some later stage.
"It is always sad to leave your friends and they became family over the years but I am still very close to Rita and speak to her four times a day."
But since leaving Albert Square, Sam "hasn’t stopped working", including starring in movie ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’.
She added to the Eastern Daily Press: "It has been good and I haven’t stopped working – I did ‘The Addams Family’ all of last year and there has also been the ‘Kingsman’ films and ‘Silent Witness’ and then I’ve gone straight to this show [‘The Girl on the Train’]."