Yahoo News Danny Dyer says he was a 'car crash' before EastEnders turned his life around
After nearly a decade on Albert Square, Danny Dyer's EastEnders exit will air on Christmas Day.
Danny Dyer has credited his role as Mick Carter in EastEnders with turning his life and career around as he prepares to exit the soap in an explosive Christmas Day storyline.
Dyer was a high-profile addition to the BBC show in 2013 when he joined the cast as Mick, who became the new landlord of the Queen Vic on his arrival.
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In a new interview with The Sun, Dyer said his career was "on its f***ing a**e" when he was "given a shot" to join EastEnders.
"I didn’t think I would last nine years. When I came into this show I was a f***ing car crash," said the 45-year-old actor.
He added: "I was going to nightclubs and waving off of balconies and saying hello to people to pay my f***ing mortgage.
"I had made a lot of bad decisions and I was in a bad place — and [producer] Dominic Treadwell Collins took a risk on me.”
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Dyer's departure was announced at the beginning of this year and will air on Christmas Day, entwined with the exit of Charlie Brooks as Janine — Mick's new partner.
The actor confessed he had questioned whether leaving the show was the right thing to do as he is "very attached" to the job he has been doing for almost a decade.
Dyer added: "It has been a third of my career, I worked it out — 30 years I have been knocking about in this industry and I have been on this show nearly ten.
"So to make the decision I made, I did not make it lightly because it is a huge job to walk away from. I thought long and hard about it."
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Dyer said his exit in a one-hour special marks the "end of an era" and he wanted the episode to be "a fitting end" to a decade of his career.
Earlier this year, Dyer teased the possibility of Mick being killed off, which would certainly provide a suitably dramatic conclusion.
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