Ben Hardy knew he had to get off EastEnders. When he joined the cast of the long-running soap in 2013, playing Ian Beale’s misguided son Peter, he only planned to stick around for a year.

Ben Hardy, who quit EastEnders as Bobby Beale almost a decade ago, went on to break Hollywood the following year, when he starred as Archangel in X-Men: Apocalypse. Michelle Ryan played Zoe ...