Lacey Turner: I never watched EastEnders, not even when I was in it!

Lacey Turner at the National Television Awards in 2011 (Getty Images)

Former EastEnders actress Lacey Turner has admitted she did not watch EastEnders - even when she was in it.

Turner, 24, starred as Stacey in the BBC1 soap between 2004 and 2010.

Asked if she was still keeping up with events in Albert Square, she told the Radio Times: "No, I didn't even watch it while I was in it!

"You don't have time and once you've been there for 14 hours you don't want to.

"Now I mostly watch TV at night, in bed after a cup of hot chocolate, and at the moment I'm really, really into The Following with Kevin Bacon."

Turner plays a soldier in the Royal Army Medical Corps in BBC1 drama Our Girl, and said that many of her co-stars were soldiers.

"I asked them to watch me 24/7 because the Army is so strict. If even a thumb is out of place recruits have to do it again and again and again, and the same applied to me," she said.

"A few times sergeants shouted at me - they mistook me for a real cadet because I was in the same uniform and didn't have my BBC badge."

PA