Michelle Ryan - Biography

In a nutshell

Michelle Ryan hails from Enfield in London and obviously had some 'star quality' about her from an early age. She joined a local theatre group when she was 10, as have quite a lot of other people, but it was her that went a bit further, being picked at the age of 15 to star in EastEnders.

Her first appearance on the show was in September 2000 and, with cockney accent perfected, she starred alongside the rest of the Slater family ? all of whom had some cracking storylines in their time. Our most memorable was when Zoe found out that Kat was actually her muvva, not her sister. Wow. It went something like this: 'You're not my muvva!!!'. Pause. 'Yesh I ammmm!!!!!!!'. Hang on while I turn down the volume.

After five successful years Michelle decided to leave EastEnders and we thought that would be the absolute end of her, bar the odd reality TV appearance. But no, she surprised us all ? and, yes ? made us all just a little bit proud when she popped up on American TV.

Bionic Woman was a remake of the classic series and hit screens in September 2007. Michelle played the lead role (you go girl, etc) and, although American TV schedules can be a pretty harsh place to be, Michelle seemed to take it in her stride. Unfortunately the show didn't take off in the way it was hoped by the network and ended up being cancelled.

So, reality TV now?

Absolutely not!! Michelle landed the role of the evil Nimueh in the brilliant BBC series, Merlin.

is a bit of a pin-up and has made it onto FHM's 100 Sexiest Women poll several times, most recently in 2007. We're sure she's very proud.

Did you know?

She auditioned to replace Billie Piper as Doctor Who's assistant but lost out on the role to Freema Agyeman, who in turn ended up getting the boot for Catherine Tate