Ex-EastEnders hardman still doing own stunts aged 59 in 'very violent' BBC drama

Craig Fairbrass is best known for playing EastEnders bad boy Dan Sullivan from 1999 until 2001 and two decades after leaving Walford he's still filming his own stunts

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Ed Gleave

18:42, 18 NOV 2023

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EastEnders star Craig Fairbrass is still doing his own stunts at 59.

The ex-soap star did high-octane scenes for the drama Boat Story. He told Daily Star: "There’s plenty of action in this series and I was fine with it. Whatever I could do when it came to stunts, I did it. I was on top of it all. It's very unusual for a UK show to have that amount of action in it.

"There’s one sequence in particular, which was like nothing I’ve ever read before. It reminded me of a big American action sequence. It’s very explosive and very violent." Boat Story starts Sunday (November 19) at 9pm on BBC One.

In 1999, Craig landed the regular role of Dan Sullivan in EastEnders, leaving the show in August 2001. He then took the lead role of Ray Betson in the Channel 5 crime drama The Great Dome Robbery.

EastEnders star Craig Fairbrass is still doing his own stunts at 59 (Image: BBC/Two Brothers/Matt Squire)

He has previously opened Being typecast as a hard British gangster and said he enjoys the roles in films revolving around knife crime, criminal gangs, and violence, Fairbrass stated in a 2020 interview: "I'm very wary of the violence that is in the films. It's like playing Call of Duty. People say to me, 'How do you feel that you're voicing characters in games that could be the instigation for someone to go out and commit murder?' I am just an actor. In the end of the day, it's all make believe. Some people take it a step further."

The ex-soap star did high-octane scenes for the drama Boat Story (Image: BBC/Two Brothers)

Craig stars in the Rise of the Footsoldier movies. He plays Pat Tate, one of the British gangsters shot dead in a Range Rover, along with his pals Tony Tucker and Craig Rolfe . Pat was a member of one of the most notorious gangs in British history, the Essex Boys. The gang was mainly involved in drug deals and were thought to be major players in the ecstasy trade that fuelled Britain's booming rave scene.

Craig played the regular role of Dan Sullivan in EastEnders in 1999 until 2001 (Image: Press Association)

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The actor has been a mainstay of the series and reprises the role again in the latest film. "It's a revenge mission and this one is a lot slicker; it's got more of a linear storyline - it's Pat Tate on a mission to find out who killed one of his best friends. It’s a lot more gripping because there’s a story," he said.

"In this film I looked for small ways to make Pat Tate more human, just a touch, because before it was just like the Terminator and the messages I've had from the public and the reviews on film have all been 99.9% positive which is unheard of for a film of this genre which at the end of the day, is a London gangster thriller." In 2018, he won best actor at The National Film Awards for his strong portrayal of Pat in Rise of Footsoldier 3.

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