Former EastEnders star Michelle Collins says she won't be tempted by any offers to return to the BBC soap, insisting: "I'd be typecast for life."
The 57-year-old actress - currently appearing in UK Channel 5's Celebrity 5 Go Camping, spent ten years in Walford playing Ian Beale's scheming wife Cindy, before departing in 1998.
Cindy died, off screen, as she gave birth in the soap. But she insists that she will not be following in the footsteps of some other EastEnders' characters who have returned from the dead.
"It's just too long now . . . apart from the fact I'm dead . . . If I went back to EastEnders, that would be it," she told the Press Association.
"I still haven't shaken Cindy off after all these years," she added. "I'm not saying it's a bad thing but it has always been there and I've done a lot of work over the years."
Collins said she enjoys the continued affection for her character, who was voted Walford's best ever bad girl, saying: "You become a bit of myth. I think it would spoil it if I went back.
"It would probably be really good fun for a week and then I'd start moaning like every actor!"
But what's probably holding her back more than anything else is the fear of it ruining her future career.
"I'd be completely typecast for life then," she reckons. "I don't think I'd be able to do anything else, which is fine for some people.
"Soaps are great. They're great for learning your craft and a lot of actors love being in soaps because it's security . . .
"In a few years' time I might go, 'I want to settle down now. I want to be secure.' But at the moment I love being a jobbing actor."
