Nina Wadia's 'difficult' roof collapse scenes

'EastEnders' actress Nina Wadia found filming the scene where a ceiling collapses on her on-screen son Syed Masood "difficult".

Nina plays stubborn matriarch Zainab Masood - who ignores her estranged son when the disaster happens at her youngest son Tamwar's (Himesh Patel) engagement party - in the BBC1 soap and says as a mother herself she found her character's decision hard to understand.

She said: "It's very difficult. For me as an actress and a real mother it was very hard not to go up to my pretend son who's hurt. But you have to stay true to the story and the writers have decided that, in that case, she wouldn't.

"So that was hard - when you see someone who you really love hurt in that way, you want to be right by their side."

Nina - who has son Aiden and daughter Tia with her husband Raiomond Mirza - says deep down Zainab would love to reconcile with Syed (Marc Elliot) after rejecting him when he revealed he was gay but instead she is horrified when he gives a speech in front of everyone at the party.

She explained to Digital Spy: "I think the last thing she wants is for Syed to stand up to her in front of the entire community and say, 'It's okay for me to be here because I'm a part of this family'.

"Deep down, Zainab would probably love for that to be true, and she probably does believe that is true. But at that moment, being shown up in front of the community and in front of her friends, she is not going to back down. She's way too strong-minded for that."