Danny Dyer may be riding high off the back of Rivals, but his casting, when it was announced, ruffled a few feathers.
And why not? Most people only knew Dyer from playing geezerish hardmen – the extremely Cockney Mick Carter in EastEnders, for instance. Or from his roles in Human Traffic and The Football Factory (along with its many, many spinoffs).
They were soon set straight. For in fact, Dyer proved to be one of the most delightful things about Rivals – the bonkbuster Disney+ series adapted from Jilly Cooper’s novels.
In it, he plays Freddie Jones, a Cockney (of course) businessman who is wooed by David Tennant’s Lord Tony Baddingham to join the board of his TV entreprise Corinthia. But it’s his tentative love affair with Katherine Parkinson’s lonely novelist Lizzie that is one of the series’ highlights.
Dyer’s meek Freddie, who veers between bashfully complimenting Lizzie and making weak jokes about potatoes at a society event, is a world away from his usual strongman image – and Dyer extracts every inch of pathos from his character.
He is, in short, a bit of a revelation – something that Dyer himself seems keenly aware of.
“Some people were alluding to the fact that, you know, I'm the one that sort of come out of it, really, in a way, going, 'Oh God, he's a really good actor,’” he told his daughter Dani of the show on their Live and Let Dyers podcast.
"I'm getting this backhanded sort of, you know, from these big, broadsheets going, 'Oh no.' Actually, there's a headline that went, 'The biggest plot twist about Rivals is that Danny Dyer can act.'”
Dyer, understandably, added that he didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted – but this kind of backhanded admiration is par for the course when it comes to the Londoner.
Part of it is probably his way into acting. Born in the Custom House area of London in 1977, the young Dyer was bullied so badly as a teen that he lied about going to acting classes. “I suffered from homophobia, despite not being gay,” he wrote in his memoir.
“To my mates, and some who weren’t quite as matey, being an actor is exactly the same as being homosexual. The bullying I got was sometimes horrible.”
Dyer was spotted and signed by an agent at the age of 16. After a few small roles, he broke through as the belligerent Moff in 1999 film Human Traffic. This was followed in quick succession by roles as Billy the Limpet in Mean Machine (2001) and as Tommy Johnson in The Football Factory (2004).
The success of the latter gained him a reputation for being a ‘hard man’, a label he was trying to shake off as early as 2009, telling the Telegraph that “I need to show this vulnerable side to me that I've got. I'm quite a tearful person if you like, very affectionate… it's just about someone taking a risk with me really, saying 'I want to put you in a role no one would ever think of you doing.’”
“Fingers crossed it will happen for me, I want to make a film that my kids can watch, man, Disney or something.”
A few years later, he joined the cast of EastEnders in 2013 as the geezerish Mick Carter (a role he’d previously said he wouldn’t consider doing until he was “fat, bald and 50”).
As the years went on, Dyer gained a reputation for being a bit of a national treasure. Who can forget his moment on Good Morning Britain in 2018 – in which he went on a much-memed rant about David Cameron, calling him a “t**t” on live TV.
Or, indeed, appearing in arguably the best-ever episode of BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, where he discovered that he was descended from actual royalty? (This was, of course, followed by a spin-off TV series named Right Royal Family where he attempted to excavate his genetic heritage in more detail.)
These kinds of shows introduced us to Dyer, and he didn’t seem all that different from his on-screen personas. He was Mick Carter, if Mick Carter was dialled down a few notches. A loveable nutter, who you could picture drinking a pint with in a matchday pub – and maybe getting into a fight after a few too many. Most of the characters he played were variations on a theme – and the theme was himself.
People loved it. But national treasure is not the same thing as treasured actor, and despite the flashes of brilliance, acting kudos has eluded Dyer.
All this, despite the fact that celebrated playwright Harold Pinter acclaimed him several decades ago as one of his favourite actors working in Britain. Dyer did actually star in three of Pinter’s plays – as the Waiter in the London premiere of Celebration in 2000, in the 2001 revival of No Man’s Land at the Royal National Theatre, and as Joey in the revival of The Homecoming.
“He had faith in me, he suffered all my shit because he knew I was a talented actor,” Dyer later told the Guardian. And indeed, those plays (which formed the bulk of his stage career) provide tantalising glimpses of talent – talent which the rest of us finally seem to be waking up to with Rivals.
Now at 47, Dyer looks to be entering a new phase of his career: that of the Serious Character Actor. A second series of Rivals notwithstanding, he has four films on the go: here’s hoping he gets to show off his range in those.
