Barbara Smith (actress)
Barbara Joan Smith is an English actress. After roles in Doctors, Call the Midwife and Casualty, she was cast as Dana Monroe in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. She appeared from 2021 to 2022, after which has since appeared in The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.
Life and career
Barbara Joan Smith was born in 1997 in Wandsworth, London. Her first acting credit was in the 2010 short film Devil's Redemption. After various other short film roles, her first television role was in 2017, when she portrayed Suki Stock in an episode of the BBC soap opera Doctors. Her character was involved in a storyline where she was found to be selling her mother's medication to fund her college course. In 2018, Smith appeared in an episode of BBC's Call the Midwife as Josie Winterlee. That same year, she featured in the 2018 action film I Am Vengeance, her first professional film credit.In April 2019, Smith appeared in the BBC soap opera EastEnders as Ellie. A guest role, her character was a student at the University of Oxford who tells Bex Fowler that she gets through her revision by taking ADHD medication. She then appeared in fellow BBC drama series Casualty as Kailey Clark. Later that year, she starred in White Girl as Beth, which was nominated for Best Short film at the BFI London Film Festival. She also had her first professional stage role as the leading role in Dear Elizabeth at the Gate Theatre. Then in 2020, Smith returned to theatre, this time in Unburied at the Bunker Theatre.
In 2021, Smith returned to EastEnders, this time in the role of Dana Monroe. Her casting was announced in March 2021, when it was confirmed that she would be joining as a love interest for established character Bobby Beale. She was initially contracted in a recurring role on the soap, but was eventually promoted to a regular cast member. The soap also introduced a family for Smith's character, casting Ross Boatman as father Harvey and Charlie Wernham as brother Aaron. Shortly after her introduction, Smith was nominated in the newcomer categories at both the I Talk Telly Awards and the Digital Spy Reader Awards for her portrayal of Dana. A scene of Bobby stopping Dana from leaving Walford was also nominated for Feel Good Moment at the 2021 Inside Soap Awards. She remained on EastEnders until 2022. Following her exit, she has appeared in the film Members Club in 2024 and in a recurring role on the Hulu series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.