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British actress

Lucy Renee Speed (born 31 August 1976) is an English actress best known for her television roles as Natalie Evans in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders appearing in 526 episodes between 1994 and 2004, and as DS Stevie Moss in the ITV police drama series The Bill from 2008 to 2010. She has also starred in the BBC One sitcom Cradle to Grave (2015) and ITV dramas Marcella (2018) and Unforgotten (2021). Speed is also a prolific stage performer, appearing in numerous theatrical productions.

Speed is the second of two children born to Sue (née Salter) and Sid Speed, having an older brother, Dan. Her career in performing began at the age of seven after her ballet teacher saw potential and advised her parents to get her an agent. Speed spent two terms at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.

At the age of seven, Speed modelled clothes for Kays catalogue and she went on to appear in commercials for Sunpat peanut butter, then for gas, paint, soup and the children's toy My Little Pony. By the age of eight she was acting on stage at London's National Theatre in Neap Tide, a controversial play about lesbianism and women's oppression. Speed appeared in several films during her youth, which included playing the role of Josephine Stitch in the 1987 film Scoop when she was eleven. She went on to secure the role of 'young Aurora' in the film Impromptu (1991), which was about Polish pianist Frédéric Chopin and starred Hugh Grant. Speed made an early appearance on television when she filmed at Windsor Safari Park with television presenter Johnny Morris. She went on to have roles in legal drama Rumpole of the Bailey (as Isolde Erskine Brown) in 1987, and later appeared in an episode of Saracen in 1989. In 1991 she starred in the award winning Dodgem alongside actor Sean Maguire. Dodgem was a six part televised drama for children's BBC, written and adapted by Bernard Ashley. Speed played Rose Penfold, a streetwise love interest for Maguire's character, Simon; they meet at a children's home and then run away to be together. During 1992–93 Speed appeared as Beki Jenner in two series of Rides, a BBC drama about an all woman minicab firm, written by Carole Hayman. She later appeared in an episode of the BBC children's programme Parallel 9, which aired in 1994.

Speed's big television break came in 1993 aged 17, when she won the part of Natalie Price in the BBC soap EastEnders. She played the brow beaten best friend of Bianca Jackson (played by Patsy Palmer), making her first appearance on screen in January 1994. Speed quit the soap after a year as she felt overwhelmed and unprepared by all the press attention she received from being in such a high profile show. Speed commented: "I was very frightened by it quite frankly and certainly unprepared for it. I didn't like at all the attention that came with being on such a high profile show. It simply wasn't what I signed up for in the first place all that craziness. I was very young and extremely shy, so it all became a huge difficulty for me I honoured my initial one year contract and then moved on they did express their interest in signing me for another year, but I politely but firmly declined. They were a bit shocked. I tried to explain in the best way I could my reasons for leaving at the end of my contract and they ultimately understood, and so I left on good terms with them I had some growing up to do and instinctively knew that growing up more or less in front of the British public for one year was enough!" She commented "I'd been back for five years and had very little to do the year before. I quite like being busy and I could see the scriptwriters were struggling with Natalie and where to place her so it seemed like the right time to go. It's nice that they've left it open, I'd hate to think the door was shut behind me. Absolutely, I'd like to go back, never say never.”