EastEnders star Alice Haig has revealed that she was initially “alarmed” about going for the role of Vicki Fowler.

The star made her debut as the character earlier this year, taking over the role from Scarlett Alice Johnson who previously played the part more than two decades ago.

Speaking to Isolation Interviews, Alice admitted that she wasn’t aware that she was reading for Vicki when she auditioned.

“I didn’t know I was playing Vicki until the day before I started, so it was a bit of a bonkers moment,” she explained. “In the audition, it’s all code names, you don’t know who you’re playing. Obviously, it’s got the mood of the person, but you’re not sure who you’re going to be playing.

“And then I found out who it was, and at the beginning, I think I was a little bit alarmed. I thought, ‘Do I have to do certain things? Will I have to sound like the person?’ And [the bosses] were like, ‘Absolutely not. You do what you do, and what you did, and what you read the part as’.”

Alice recalled that the more she delved into the idea, the more she thought: “[You] can’t really be somebody else’s energy or have somebody else’s atmosphere”, nor can you “pretend to be someone else”.

“It’s much better to just go with the information that you’ve got,” she continued. “So I was more interested in looking at, like, who her parents were.

“So, feeding in from what Michelle’s energy was like, and what Den was like, and that informed much more about how I was going to play it,” Alice added, sharing she wouldn’t want to “copy Scarlett”, who she called “brilliant and completely different” to her.

The star previously revealed the sweet reaction Scarlett had to her recasting, telling The Sun: “[She] sent me a beautiful email wishing me luck and being incredibly kind. It was a lovely thing to get. She said it’s great fun playing Vicki Fowler and I couldn’t agree more.”