Ask Perry Fenwick transcript
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| This event took place Friday 25th January, 2001 |
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Perry Fenwick
EastEnders Billy Mitchell, aka Perry Fenwick, joined us for a Live Chat and answered your questions about the cast, his character and West Ham ...
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Question from Ian: Hi Perry, really enjoyed your acting tonight, did you watch yourself, and how do you feel?
Perry Fenwick: Good question Ian. I do watch the shows because you don't learn unless you see your mistakes and stuff like that. I tend to watch episodes like tonight's one on my own, I find it hard to watch it with other people. I get embarrassed if I see things that aren't as good, which is good for me because I can always pick up things from my performances. You can never believe all the press stuff, I tend to guage my performances from my Exec Producer. I grew up in the East End and I sometimes get messages from my old mates. If I can convince them, I've done alright.
Question from Christine Haworth: Does Billy start becoming more sympathetic to Jamie?
Perry Fenwick: I think you've seen a bit tonight. Jamie got the backlash of everything you found out tonight with Billy. Billy was put in a situation with Jamie, he was the only person that could be a guardian for Jamie after his dad died, and all Billy was used to was a care home. I hope it's a turning point for him. I'd like to see them become closer together, the Mitchell's are quite a good family. It would be nice for them to become a force to reckon with.
Question from Barry Koervers: What do you think of Billy's current situation and what would you do in that situation?
Perry Fenwick: It's a weird one. When he burst into the house, he didn't know. He's left the situation. He's got out a lot of stuff that's been inside him, and realised you don't have to use violence, hopefully he'll be all the better for it.
Question from Dave English: What has been your favourite storyline since joining EastEnders?
Perry Fenwick: Tonight's been the biggest one I've had. I've had some good ones though. Billy's been involved in so many. From when Grant left really - the original stuff with Jamie, the stuff with Janine was funny, when he snogged Melanie was fun! It's good for me as an actor because I've been able to work with a lot of them, because of the nature of Billy's character really he's always trying to survive and people know he's always willing to do anything for money. It opens me up as an actor to work with the cast. I quite like the interacting part of it, it keeps it fresh and live for me.
Question from Danielle Ringland: Can you relate to your character Billy from your real life person?
Perry Fenwick: I look like him! Yeah I suppose so. It starts off as a character written down on a page and then it gets organic, the writers and directors see what you can do, and then all of a sudden you've got a character. Over the time that you're doing it, you develop a history, you've been in all these storylines. There's a lot of me in Billy, but at the same time I'm not skint and I don't get beaten up every other Wednesday and I've got a girlfriend!
Question from Andy Horbin: I'm still drying my eyes after one of the most sensitive, well written and acted storylines on TV for ages. Perry, when you started playing Billy, did you know the kind of past the character was supposed to have had?
Perry Fenwick: Thanks Angie. It was August 1998. I was only scheduled to do four episodes, the character was there to introduce Jack Ryder to the series. I only took the job when it was stipulated that it was a Mitchell character and if I did a decent job there was a chance of the character coming back. I thought I had to make the most of it, I tried to find humour in there and it's helped out a lot. There's a lot of fun to be had with Billy. Billy did have a brother, Jamie's dad, and he was a great bloke and they knocked about with Grant and Phil. Billy was the much younger one and them not letting him in. If you ignore people like that they attract attention to themselves in other ways, as he was neglected. I carried that through in how I play Billy now. He's the same as anybody else in that sense. I've had a fair input in the role over the time. It's amazing how quick the producers and writers catch on to what you're doing. Tonight's episode, I didn't change a word of it, they obviously watch everything I do and take notice.
Question from Hazel KR: Was tonight's episode difficult to perform?
Perry Fenwick: It was tough. We didn't get a lot of time to do it in. EastEnders is very fast and time consuming. If you were doing a series like Minder or something, you do an episode and you'd be lucky to shoot five scenes in a day when our average is 23 scenes a day. You'd be hard pressed to get many scenes longer than 4 pages, and these scenes today were about 14 or 15 pages, and we only had a few days to learn it. You do get some brilliant things out of it as there's a nervous energy there and adrenaline. There's bits you notice that you forgot you do, as a lot of it is instinct.
Question from Dave Rigley: Where do you think the storyline should go from here?
Perry Fenwick: I think Perry should get a huge pay rise after tonight's episode and buy him a huge house. They don't tell you that much, you get called in every few months. I'm about six weeks ahead of what you're watching and that's it. We only read our own bits too. You get so many scripts coming through, you couldn't possibly read them all and your character doesn't know everything so it's not right that you know, as I'd act it differently if I know what's happening to another character. I like being surprised ... well, fairly surprised.
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