by Joe Allan
Dani already had an agent by her early teens, and, after appearing in a small supporting role alongside her dad in Vendetta in 2013, it was reported in early 2014 that she had landed her first role – in a British gangster film called We Still Kill the Old Way. Confusingly, Dani would be starring alongside her dad’s on-screen son, Danny-Boy Hatchard. OK! magazine quoted the film’s producer as saying he ‘predicted a bright future for this rising star’, adding she had ‘natural flair for acting like her Dad’. While a bit of nepotism might have been involved – the producer was Jonathan Sothcott, a long-time collaborator and co-writer of The Films of Danny Dyer – he stressed Dani had been hired on her own merits: ‘Having known Dani since she was a kid I have seen her grow into a remarkable young actress – she has a very natural, honest quality and really impressed us ... I have no doubt she has what it takes to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a bona fide film star and I’m really excited to give her her first leading role.’
Danny promoted his daughter by congratulating her on Twitter, saying, ‘Proud of ya baby girl’, but he would be all too aware of what she was letting herself in for.
Danny still has plenty of other ambitions he would like to achieve. He revealed his dream job to The Lady magazine: ‘The obvious one would be Bond. A nice cockney Bond.’ While Daniel Craig might have something to say about it in the short term, there’s no doubt that the very fact Danny has put his hat in the ring in public means his name will undoubtedly surface in the frenzied speculation following Craig’s eventual retirement. More seriously, Danny confessed, ‘I also want to play a detective … [Someone] who does not play by the rules but gets the job done.’
In light of the heightened profile he now enjoys, thanks to EastEnders, it’s not difficult to imagine Danny branching out even further. There is nothing standing in the way of him fronting a hard-hitting, quality drama along the same lines as recent television successes Happy Valley, Line of Duty or Broadchurch, and it’s no stretch to imagine Danny bringing to life a contemporary literary character such as Jackson Brodie, from Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories series, or Ian Rankin’s eponymous detective from the Rebus novels.
EastEnders could indeed act as the perfect springboard for Danny, signalling a second stage of his career as a more valued, respected actor, capable of more challenging and interesting roles. Several of Danny’s contemporaries have made the enviable leap from movies to television and back again, with many finding success on successful American television series. There is now an established practice of the big US television networks engaging the services of some of the UK’s leading acting talents, such as Hugh Laurie in his eight-year stint in House. Shows like HBO’s Game of Thrones, which has a cast that is predominantly British, have given the careers of many UK actors an invaluable boost, while actors such as Damian Lewis, Kelly Macdonald and Stephen Moyer had varying degrees of success in the UK before landing long-running and critically acclaimed roles in US dramas Homeland, Boardwalk Empire and True Blood respectively. Two of Danny’s former co-stars, Jonny Lee Miller and Andrew Lincoln, have mastered their American accents and are currently enjoying extremely successful stints in lead roles as Sherlock Holmes in CBS’s Elementary and as Rick Grimes on FOX TV’s The Walking Dead. Even Danny’s old friend Tamer Hassan popped up for a cameo in the recent 24 reboot, Live Another Day.
Although he recognizes the opportunities and potential rewards afforded by a move to the US, the main problem for Danny has always been the thought of uprooting his whole family from the UK. ‘I think that America is where you wanna be, but I should have done it younger,’ he told Hunger TV. ‘I’ll never write it off ... It’s just whether I take the whole family and go for it or not.’ He finished, ‘I know I could do it. I’ve just got to get my head down and concentrate.’
Being a part of EastEnders may have gone a long way to restoring his damaged reputation and resetting the public’s perception of him, but more importantly it has helped restore his love of acting, giving him a much clearer idea of his own abilities and value as a performer. Danny’s strengths and weaknesses are best illustrated in his portrayal of Mick Carter – overflowing with confidence, with an easy, masculine charm that runs parallel to his own personality. ‘[Mick’s] the closest character I’ve ever played to myself,’ he confirmed to the Radio Times. It gives the false impression that Danny isn’t actually acting at all in the role. His on-screen wife, Kellie Bright, commented on the comparison on The One Show: ‘Mick was a bit of Frank Butcher, mixed with the best of Danny Dyer.’
But there is more to Danny’s performance than even he might give himself credit for. There is a subtlety and an awareness of the other actors sharing his scenes that sets him apart. It may be that his appreciation of them is down to his stage experience, arguably the most important facet of his acting arsenal. Over the years, Danny has learnt how to be receptive in a mixed group of actors. He is competitive, but never aims to upstage or steal the limelight by tipping the delicate balance of a scene in his own direction.
True to his original intention on entering the show, Danny has maintained the Carters as a true ensemble, and their strength lies in that unity, fuelled by the actor’s determination to make their on-screen bond genuine. Danny’s enormous contribution to that is his selflessness and willingness to share credit for his success with the rest of the cast, and it is testament to his insistence that he has no real interest in anything other than getting in front of a camera and letting his acting do the talking.
Perhaps, with this in mind, EastEnders might just be enough of a challenge for him to satisfy any unfulfilled career ambitions. Dominic Treadwell-Collins had put a lot of faith in Danny, giving him a fairly unique position on British television. By allowing him to enter the show with star billing, to instantly take centre stage, and set to remain a major focal point in the long-term plans for the show’s future, Danny was in an enviable position. ‘Mick is a really great character to play,’ he acknowledged to Digital Spy. He went on to explain how the EastEnders experience was not only satisfying his needs as an actor, but it was also having a hugely positive effect on his personal life. ‘It’s a case of trying to find that middle ground between having exciting material to work with, but also having a life outside of the show. I’ve got a newborn child at home . . . so I’m also going home and dealing with that. That’s been pretty tough, but like I said, the material is great and I’m really buzzing off that at the moment.’ An extended stay on Albert Square would of course go a long way towards the rehabilitation of his film career and public image that he had been crying out for, but, more importantly, it would have the added bonus of giving his home life a degree of stability sorely lacking during some of his wilder periods.
Asked whether he had left his wild past behind in an interview in the Guardian, specifically mentioning his well-publicized involvement with drugs, Danny said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not ideal, is it, taking drugs and going home to a newborn child? You have to find a point in your life where you’re like, “Time to grow up. Time to let some brain cells regenerate.”’ It was undeniable that the drama surrounding Danny’s personal life has settled down since he’d joined EastEnders. The addition of his third child, Arty, into the Mas–Dyer household, as well as the regular hours and more structured schedule necessary for his new job, had undoubtedly aided the transition from wild party-man to a more domesticated sort.
With his home life being as it is, is it finally time for Danny and Joanne to tie the knot? Speaking to The Lady magazine about marriage, Danny said, ‘I should do now really after twenty years. I was going to propose a little while ago but we had a big row and she said, “I will never marry you.” And I was just on the verge of buying her a ring as well.’ When asked if he thought his children wanted their parents to get married, he responded, ‘They don’t really know any different do they?’ He then admitted, ‘Yeah, it’s something we will definitely have to do. I mean it’s ridiculous … I think we will do it [backwards]
, in the fact that our kids will be grown up and then we will get married.’ With Arty turning one in 2014, it might be a while before Joanne officially becomes Mrs Joanne Dyer.
Speaking in the early part of that year, Danny opened up to Attitude magazine about his current state of mind: ‘I’m pushing forty now. I like saying it. I’m on the other side of thirty, I’m thirty-seven this year. I don’t think it‘s a bad thing. It’s my way of saying, I’m changing.’ Danny had made several key adjustments in his life: at home he was considerably more settled, and he had long ago turned a corner as far as drugs and alcohol were concerned. His commitment to Joanne was stronger than ever and the addition of his first son, Arty, would not only break the all-female monopoly in the Mas–Dyer home, it would give Danny a brand-new perspective on being a father. Professionally, as part of the EastEnders family, he had reached a much wider audience than he could ever have imagined in the earlier stages of his career, and had received a previously unsurpassed level of acceptance and praise for his work. While Danny had entered a new phase in his life, his core values, and everything central to his success, had remained fundamentally unchanged.
Danny had entered the dog-eat-dog arena of high-profile celebrity – from the initial choice to pursue a career in acting all the way to eventually taking a job on the BBC’s flagship show – with his eyes wide open. Over the years, he had fallen foul to many of the pitfalls littering the road to success. He consistently shunned the media intrusion that now seemed to go hand in hand with his industry, uncomfortable with the apparently inseparable association between celebrity and his chosen profession. Although he loved it, acting for Danny was a job, first and foremost – a view not always taken by certain sections of the industry, which simply appeared hungry for fame and the fleeting notoriety it could bring them. He was justifiably proud of his career achievements, of working hard for most of his adult life, and was more than willing to hold his hand up and admit where he’d gone wrong.
But Danny possessed a driving ambition, an unwavering enthusiasm and unlimited energy, which made him all the more determined to remain focused on the job at hand: developing as an actor and providing for his family. As his character, Frankie, in The Business, says, ‘I’d rather be someone for a day than no one for a lifetime.’
Danny seems to have approached EastEnders, and his future in the acting profession, with the same fighting spirit he’d brought to every other challenge he’d experienced in his early years and throughout his career. He may have struggled and fought to overcome a difficult start in life, but he remains immensely proud of his humble London roots. Danny recognizes the fact that these early battles gave him the dogged determination to do things on his own terms and fuelled the drive and confidence he had to succeed, with little help from anyone outside of his close-knit family. The lack of an early helping-hand, in term of connections within the industry, only made his eventual success that much sweeter, justifying his decision to fiercely defend his status as an outsider, a champion of independent cinema and someone who tries to remain, often stubbornly and detrimentally, true to himself. Through his choice of a relatively understated family home, his loyalty to his beloved West Ham and the genuine nature of his portrayal of Mick Carter, Danny remains connected to the family, his friends and the places that shaped him – he remains a real East End boy.
SOURCES
NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES
Attitude
Daily Mail
Daily Star
Empire
Evening Standard
Front
GQ
Guardian
Hollywood Reporter
Independent
The Lady
Loaded
Mail On Sunday
Mirror
The New York Times
NME
Nuts
Observer
OK!
Q
Radio Times
Rolling Stone
Screen International
Sun
Sunday Mirror
Sunday People
The Sunday Times
Telegraph
Total Film
Variety
ONLINE
Anewdirection.org.uk (A New Direction for Arts)
Askmen.com
BBC.co.uk/film
BBC.co.uk/news
BBC.co.uk/radio1
Cinema.com
Digitalspy.co.uk
Eastendersultra.co.uk
Empireonline.com
Facebook.com
Femalefirst.co.uk
Film4.com
Huffington Post
Hungertv.com
LoveFilm.com
Sickchirpse.com
Thesun.co.uk
Twitter.com
UK.lifestyle.yahoo.com
BOOKS
Dyer, Danny Straight Up, Arrow Books, 2010
Goldman, William Adventures in the Screen Trade, Abacus, 1996
Mullinger, James, Sothcott, Jonathan The Films of Danny Dyer, Caffeine Nights Publishing, 2013
FILMS AND TELEVISION
Borstal Boy
The Business
Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe
Deviation
The Football Factory
Goodbye Charlie Bright
Human Traffic
The Jonathan Ross Show
The Last Seven
Loose Women
Malice in Wonderland
Nothing To Something: Danny Dyer
The One Show
The Paul O’Grady Show
Prime Suspect 3
Run For Your Wife
Severance
Straightheads
The Trench
Vendetta
PICTURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Pagelink: REX/ITV
Pagelink: Michael Crabtree/PA Images
Pagelink: REX/Moviestore Collection
Pagelink: REX/Moviestore Collection
Pagelink: Doug Peters/EMPICS/PA Images
Pagelink: Gareth Davies/Getty Images
Pagelink: Myung Jung Kim/PA Images
Pagelink: Rex/Snap Stills
Pagelink: © Photos 12/Alamy
Pagelink: Martial Trezzini/PA Images
Pagelink: REX/Moviestore Collection
Pagelink: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
Pagelink: REX
Pagelink: © Revolver/Everett/REX
Pagelink: Beretta/Sims/REX
Pagelink: Joshua Lawrence/REX
Pagelink: Emma Coles/EMPICS/PA Images
Pagelink: Max Nash/AFP/Getty Images
Pagelink: REX/Alastair Muir
Pagelink: Dave M Benett/Getty Images
Pagelink: © Geraint Lewis/Alamy
Pagelink: REX/Alastair Muir
Pagelink: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
Pagelink: JAB Promotions/WireImage/Getty Images
Pagelink: Beretta/Sims/REX
Pagelink: REX/Rory Gilder
Pagelink: Yui Mok/PA Images
Pagelink: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images
Pagelink: Ian West/PA Wire/PA Images
Pagelink: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
Pagelink: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
INDEX
(The initials DD refer to Danny Dyer)
A New Direction for Arts (AND) ref1
Abbot, Russ ref1
Academy Awards ref1, ref2
Adulthood ref1
Adventures in the Screen Trade (Goldman) ref1
Afghan War ref1
Age of Heroes ref1
Ali G ref1
Alice in Wonderland ref1
All in the Game ref1
All the President’s Men ref1
All Star Mr & Mrs ref1
Allen, Keith ref1, ref2
Allen, Lily ref1
Almeida Theatre ref1, ref2
Amalou, J.K. ref1
Anderson, Gillian ref1, ref2, ref3
Arnold, Andrea ref1
Askmen.com re
f1, ref2, ref3
Askwith, Robin ref1
Assassin ref1
Atkinson, Kate ref1
Atkinson, Rowan ref1
Attitude ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12
Backpacker’s Guide to Thailand, The ref1
Badland, Annette ref1
BAFTA Awards ref1, ref2
Basement, The ref1
BBC ref1
BBC Film ref1
BBC News ref1
BBC Three ref1
Beacham, Stephanie ref1
Beale, Ian ref1
Bean, Sean ref1, ref2, ref3
Behan, Brendan ref1
film representation of ref1
Bend It Like Beckham ref1
Berry, Halle ref1
Big Fat Quiz of the Year, The ref1
Bill, The ref1
Billy Elliot ref1
Blackadder ref1
Blitz ref1
Boardwalk Empire ref1
Bolan, Marc ref1
borstal ref1, ref2, ref3
Borstal Boy (book) (Behan) ref1
Borstal Boy (film) ref1, ref2
Boyd, William ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Boyle, Danny ref1, ref2, ref3
Bradshaw, Peter ref1
Bravo ref1, ref2, ref3
Briers, Richard ref1
Bright, Kellie ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
Brit-trash ref1
British Soap Awards ref1, ref2, ref3
Broadchurch ref1
Broadway ref1
Brooker, Charlie ref1
Brown, David ref1
Bryant, Det. Sammy (fictional) ref1
Business, The ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
authentic detail applied to ref1
Lads’ mags’ appreciation of ref1
Cadfael ref1, ref2
Cage, Nicholas ref1
Caine, Michael ref1
Cannes Film Festival ref1
Cannon, Danny ref1
Capaldi, Peter ref1
Carr, Jimmy ref1
Carry On... ref1, ref2
Case Histories ref1