A Square Cop- Bill star Scott quits ITV show for Eastenders

[carmelina]

TV cop Scott Maslen has been poached from The Bill by EastEnders.


Scott, who plays ladies’ man DS Phil Hunter, will arrive in Walford as Jack Branning, a romeo ex-copper.

He will bed a string of women — with sexy Ronnie Mitchell, played by Samantha Janus, soon in his sights. Ex-Royal Marine Scott, 36, is the first star to be poached by one soap from another.

He told pals he was fed up with moves to “sex up” ITV’s The Bill with gimmicky plots and guest stars.

Scott will start filming the BBC1 soap in August.

ITV sources say his decision to quit came as a “bombshell”. One said: “He handed in his notice this week and broke the news to colleagues. Nobody had a clue before that.

“It’s come as a bombshell to the producers because they see Scott as a pivotal character.

“He’s been on the show for five years and is getting fed up with the direction of the show.

“ITV has dictated changes, insisting on guests, basically trying to make it sexier. A lot of people are unhappy.”

Meanwhile, BBC sources were “overjoyed” and producers plan to make Jack a huge character on EastEnders. A BBC source said: “Jack is used to getting his own way. He also tries it on with most of the women he comes across.

“The Mitchell sisters, Ronnie and Roxy, catch his eye from an early stage. It’s a great part for Scott to get his teeth into.”

Scott said last night: “I’m really looking forward to playing Jack Branning. He is an extremely competitive man who always likes to win in business and in pleasure.”

[HandoGod]

Jack Branning? Is he any relation to the others then?

Cheers for the heads up.

[alan1254]

the bill and eastenders seem to be totaly interchangable when it comes to actors is it compulsary when you leave the bill you have to join eastenders?

[faceless]

it's usually the other way round - when someone leaves Eastenders they turn up on The Bill.

[carmelina]

[eefanincan]

I'd take him over Max anyday Thanks for the update carmelina.

[alan1254]

[faceless]

Scott is the carp king
By Ray Robson
www.thisislocallondon.co.uk

Actor Scott Maslen, who plays Jack Branning in EastEnders, has been trying to catch a 30lb-plus carp for years. Then, just like a London bus, two came along at once last week. Fishing with maize and immitation corn, Scott had a fabulous 34lb 2oz linner mirror and returned five days later to land a 30lb 8oz common.

Mention crucian carp in any tackle shop in the south of England and the conversation will turn to Godalming AC's Marsh Farm. I have just heard of yet another fantastic brace of crucians finding the net there. Simon Bull pole-fished corn over a bed of pellet and caster and came up with one of the best braces of crucians ever reported to me with specimens of 4lb 1oz and 3lb 12ozs.

It was Simon's first visit to Marsh Farm - but I bet it's not his last!

[HandoGod]

Congrats Scott. I'm on the hunt too, never had anything over 14lb

[faceless]

Scott Maslen confesses: "I nearly killed a man with an iron bar"
Tom Bryant
16/10/2010
mirror.co.uk

He's the sexiest star in soaps and a favourite to waltz away with the Strictly title - but Scott Maslen has a dark and violent secret. The EastEnders hunk has revealed a past as hard as Jack Branning's, the character he plays in the soap. Ex-model Scott, who also starred in The Bill, once attacked a man with a steel pipe in a street fight, for racially abusing a friend - and feared that he had killed him. Scott, 39, was a teenager when a friend phoned saying he had been racially abused by kids in Greenwich, East London.

He said: "I met him there and he knocked on their door. He received a complete tirade of racist abuse from this 40-something geezer, the father of some of the boys. We were just 16. I was about 15st and had just been sitting on the wall listening. Suddenly it had all gone off and turned very nasty. The father went back in the house, I thought to call the police, but actually came back outside with a baseball bat. One of the kids pulled a bit of steel piping from a nearby skip. He swung it into my ribs, then into the side window of a car. I was an animal trapped up a dead end street. Somehow I grabbed the piping, went back up the street and whacked the dad. We ran off. It was a mad two minutes. I stayed up that night studying for my O level history exam the next day but all the time in the back of my mind thinking 'maybe I killed him'."

Scott was also twice on the receiving end of beatings, once by a football hooligan at a match and, again aged 16, after starting a fight on the Old Kent Road, in London. He said: "Following West Ham I remember getting a boot in the face at Crystal Palace's ground. I was only about 14. Personally, I overstepped the mark just once. I started taking the piss but picked the wrong bloke. I thought it had all died down but an hour later in the toilets he hit me in the back of the head with a cosh and then spun me around and struck me again. I knew I just had to take it as a weapon was involved. I think that what's saved me."

Scott said the gravity of the incidents saw him turn his life around. He said: "It made me turn my back on my local background." He's since settled down with wife Estelle, 35, in a four-bedroom house in North London. He said balancing EastEnders and Strictly is not easy, adding: "Wherever you are you have to practise all the time. You're eating it, living it and sleeping it. You don't have enough time to learn it."

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