Tom Hooper worked 10-hour days on "EastEnders", and learned to direct with speed. He was influenced in his early career by the cinematic style of American TV series such as "ER", "NYPD Blue" and "" and tried to work that style into his "EastEnders" episodes; one scene featuring Grant Mitchell (Ross Kemp) involved a crane shot, which Hooper believes made him infamous among the "EastEnders" production crew. In 1999, Hooper directed two episodes of Granada Television's comedy-drama television series "Cold Feet", which marked his move to bigger-budget productions. There was initially concern at Granada that Hooper might be an unsuitable director for
Andy O'Brien (EastEnders) claims that it had been the original plan for Andy to marry Angie Watts (Anita Dobson), whom he had a brief affair with on-screen. He also claimed that Andy would have left the nursing profession to run The Dagmar winebar, which was instead given to a different character, James Willmott-Brown (William Boyde). Andy O'Brien (EastEnders) Andy O'Brien is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera "EastEnders", played by Ross Davidson. One of the original characters created for the series, Andy made his first appearance one month after the show first broadcast, in the 10th episode on 21 March 1985.