Jo Joyner feels fortunate about pre-EastEnders experience

Jo Joyner believes it is "incredible hard" for people to leave \'EastEnders\' and "forward [their] careers" if it is their first job out of school.

The \'Shakespeare and Hathaway\' star counts herself lucky that she had seven years of acting experience before she joined the BBC One soap as Tanya Cross in 2006, and she feels fortunate to have done a "nice mix of stuff" before rocking up in Walford.

She said: "The secret for me was that, for the seven years before \'EastEnders\', I was just a good jobbing actress, and I\'d been lucky to do a really nice mix of stuff.

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"It must be incredibly hard to leave the soap and forward your career if it\'s your first job out of school, whereas I had stuff under my belt already."

While the \'Ackley Bridge\' actress - who has made a couple of returns to Albert Square since her 2013 departure - left the soap seven years ago, she is still called Tanya by fans.

She added to Inside Soap magazine: "It\'s a mixture between Tanya and Luella usually - and sometimes Jo, which is nice because that\'s me."

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Jo previously thanked her fellow \'EastEnders\' co-star Dame Barbara Windsor for taking her "under her wing" when she first joined the soap.

The pair bonded after they had both portrayed "naughty nurses" in previous roles - Jo in comedy-drama series \'No Angels\', and Barbara as Nurse Sandra May in \'Carry On Doctor\' and Nurse Susan Ball in \'Carry On Matron\' - and she praised the star for always being "warm and devoted" to her supporters.

She wrote on Twitter: "Barbara has given so much to us all over the years, entertaining the nation, always warm & devoted to her fans & followers. She took me under her wing when I joined EE, said we had things in common both having been \'naughty nurses\'-our chance to give back (sic)"