EastEnders star Danielle Harold is looking back on 2023 with nostalgia and gratitude. Harold shared a social media reel of top highlights from last year, including shots of herself posing in a white bikini. "I've always hated change and who knew that 2023 would bring so much. 2023 thank you! You were the best and hardest year of my life but most of all filled with the most incredible memories that I will treasure for the rest of my life. Definitely a year I will never forget. I can't thank you all enough for all your love and support this year it's meant the world. Wishing you all lots of love luck and change in 2024 💕🎉," she captioned the post. Here's what's next for the star.
Harold went on I'm a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! to show people another side to her personality. "I can be a little ditzy at times but I am definitely not a 'dumb blonde'. I want to show I can do the trials, challenges and get stuck in," she told Daily Mail before the competition started. "I'd like to think I will be good if people are really struggling. I am not, however, very good at being bored, nor am I a morning person either. I will definitely muck in with all the jobs. I don't mind cooking or cleaning the toilets. I am scared of everything. I am dying to find out how vile the food will be! I am a bit scared of the dark. When you go to the House of Horrors at Halloween and things jump out at you, I am not very good when I can't see!"
Harold credits Jamie Oliver with encouraging her to become a star, after appearing on Jamie's Dream School. "Jamie Oliver was a complete life changer for me," she tells Sunday People. "I was so lucky to have got on that programme. It was so much fun and a completely new experience. It made me believe in myself and made me realize I could achieve whatever I wanted in life. You just need a little bit of encouragement sometimes and someone that believes in you."
Harold went through illness when she was young, which left her behind with her education. "At that point I just gave up and didn't try with GCSEs," she tells The Mirror. "I knew I'd never get good grades, I've always wanted to act; drama was the only lesson I enjoyed at school… I wouldn't cause trouble but I had a lot of Lola's attitude. I'd be feisty and answer back. I was so small when I started secondary school that I'd have to stick up for myself."
Harold has bittersweet feelings about saying goodbye to Lola. "When you're working so hard, time just seems to fly by and stand still at the same time, you're in a bubble," she tells OK!. "It's daunting, but exciting too. It was such a draining and emotional story and I was so physically and mentally exhausted by the end, so when it stopped it was a bit of a shock to the system. The Lola chapter is fully closed for her, but also for me, and that's given me a different drive. I'm really, really excited for my new chapter."
Harold isn't afraid of being typecast as a soap actress and has big dreams of working in Hollywood. "I see soap actors in all different roles now, and when I watch them, I just see them as a new actor and not as a soap actor – so I'm excited for all that," she tells OK!. "I'd love to work with someone like Margot Robbie, I think she's great, or any of the Harry Potter actors like Daniel Radcliffe, but I'm also totally into gritty crime dramas. I'd love a series where you know the start, middle and end, because in a soap you don't find out your story until the last minute. It's just a machine, it's just constant. So it would be lovely to know what's happening for a change."
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