{"id":8244,"date":"2021-12-05T11:07:47","date_gmt":"2021-12-05T10:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1532408"},"modified":"2021-12-05T11:18:07","modified_gmt":"2021-12-05T10:18:07","slug":"eastenders-star-brian-conley-loves-the-dark-side-of-his-surprise-role","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/eastenders-star-brian-conley-loves-the-dark-side-of-his-surprise-role\/","title":{"rendered":"EastEnders star Brian Conley loves the dark side of his surprise role"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rssexcerpt\"><\/p><p class=\"rssauthor\">By David Craig\n                \t\t<\/p><p class=\"rssbyline\">Published: Sunday, 05 December 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p><hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/><?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"yes\"?>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><p>Brian Conley has spoken out on the thrill of playing against type for his dark <a href=\"&quot;https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/tv\/soaps\/eastenders\/&quot;\">EastEnders<\/a>\u00a0role, which sees him portray a con man taking advantage of the generosity of a Walford icon.<\/p>\n<p>He was first introduced as Terry Cant, the estranged father of Sonia Fowler (Natalie Cassidy), but a recent revelation exposed that he is actually Tom \u201cRocky\u201d Cotton \u2013 a con man and identity thief.<\/p>\n<p>The character is set to have a major role in this year\u2019s <a href=\"&quot;https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/tv\/eastenders-christmas-2021-special-whitney-chelsea-newsupdate\/&quot;\">EastEnders Christmas episodes<\/a>, finding himself in over his head as he\u2019s invited to spend the festive season with Sonia and Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth).<\/p>\n<p>As the storyline picks up momentum, Conley has revealed that he\u2019s relishing the opportunity to play a role so far removed from his public persona as a comedian and entertainer.<\/p> <p>\u201cWe kept it quiet I was Tom Cotton,\u201d he began. \u201cWhen it came out the internet lit up and I loved it! I love that there\u2019s a bit of darkness there. Everyone knows me as a comedian and entertainer, everyone assumes \u2018he\u2019s funny, that\u2019s it, that\u2019s Rocky\u2019, but I would go darker.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Conley continued: \u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier being dark. If you come into a room being happy and fun and doing quips, you\u2019ve got to get a feel of the place and have your comedic timing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you come in evil, you haven\u2019t got to do anything; just come in, deep voice, \u2018Shaaaat up!\u2019 It\u2019s a lot easier to act that than being funny.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When he was initially cast in the role \u2013 then thought to be Terry Cant \u2013 EastEnders executive producer Jon Sen praised Conley\u2019s \u201ccharm, wit and charisma\u201d as a reason for his casting, suggesting the writers wanted to throw viewers off the scent of this major twist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Check out more of our <a href=\"\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/tv\/soaps\/&quot;\" target=\"&quot;_blank&quot;\" rel=\"&quot;noopener&quot; noopener noreferrer\">Soaps<\/a> coverage or visit our <a href=\"\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/tv\/tv-listings\/&quot;\" target=\"&quot;_blank&quot;\" rel=\"&quot;noopener&quot; noopener noreferrer\">TV Guide<\/a> to see what\u2019s on tonight.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By David Craig Published: Sunday, 05 December 2021 at 12:00 am Brian Conley has spoken out on the thrill of playing against type for his dark EastEnders\u00a0role, which sees him portray a con man taking advantage of the generosity of a Walford icon. He was first introduced as Terry Cant, the estranged father of Sonia [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":8245,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/eastenders-star-brian-conley-loves-the-dark-side-of-his-surprise-role.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/eastenders-star-brian-conley-loves-the-dark-side-of-his-surprise-role-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/eastenders-star-brian-conley-loves-the-dark-side-of-his-surprise-role-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/eastenders-star-brian-conley-loves-the-dark-side-of-his-surprise-role.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/eastenders-star-brian-conley-loves-the-dark-side-of-his-surprise-role.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/eastenders-star-brian-conley-loves-the-dark-side-of-his-surprise-role.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/eastenders-star-brian-conley-loves-the-dark-side-of-his-surprise-role.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By David Craig Published: Sunday, 05 December 2021 at 12:00 am Brian Conley has spoken out on the thrill of playing against type for his dark EastEnders\u00a0role, which sees him portray a con man taking advantage of the generosity of a Walford icon. He was first introduced as Terry Cant, the estranged father of Sonia&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/8244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}