{"id":645116,"date":"2026-05-02T15:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/645116\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T15:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:01:10","slug":"men-are-so-frightened-of-being-too-cuddly-or-affectionate-danny-dyer-on-going-from-hardman-to-heart-throb-in-rivals-danny-dyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/645116\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Men are so frightened of being too cuddly or affectionate\u2019: Danny Dyer on going from hardman to heart-throb in Rivals | Danny Dyer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Danny Dyer is dressed in white and carrying a huge bouquet of flowers when I drop in on his Guardian photoshoot. \u201cHello, baby,\u201d he says to me in a voice so bad-boy East End, so fabulously filthy, that he sounds like a parody of Danny Dyer<\/a>. We\u2019ve never met before, but you wouldn\u2019t guess.<\/p>\n

Dyer has been in the limelight for 30 years, but never like this. As he approaches 50, he has become a middle-aged heart-throb. The week we meet, he\u2019s on the front of Rolling Stone UK, and he can\u2019t quite believe it. \u201cI\u2019m on it now, as we speak. And the cover before was Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet! Pretty cool! You know, I\u2019ve had a long career and I couldn\u2019t get on the cover of anything till now.\u201d<\/p>\n

For much of his life, Dyer has been more infamous than famous, meat and drink to the redtop newspapers. Party animal? Tick. Boozer extraordinaire? Tick. Sex scandals? Tick. Dyer always provided good copy. But there was more to it than the debauchery. We rooted for him. For all his misdemeanours, he was still with his childhood sweetheart Jo, whom he started dating aged 13. For all his political incorrectness, he was politically astute. And for every public tumble off the rails, there was an equally compelling performance: on stage, as a protege of great East End playwright Harold Pinter; on screen, as Moff, a motor-mouthed trouble-maker in the rave culture comedy-drama Human Traffic; and on TV, as family man and pink-dressing-gowned grafter Mick Carter, landlord of EastEnders\u2019 Queen Vic.<\/p>\n

None of this, though, could prepare us for his reinvention as a romcom hero and Britain\u2019s most unlikely national treasure. It\u2019s thanks to the TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper\u2019s bonkbuster Rivals. Dyer plays self-made electronics mogul Freddie Jones, a moral beacon in a world of bastards, double-crossers and priapic bed-hoppers. In series one, with his 1980s-style \u2019tash, shaggy bob, soft belly and even softer heart, he showed us what it was like to be a real man. An issue that Dyer himself has been battling with for much of his life.<\/p>\n

We meet to chat at a pub round the corner from the shoot. We\u2019re in a trendy part of corporate east London, but the pub feels like a relic from the East End Dyer grew up in. Basic and barely furnished, the most gastro thing on offer is a bag of cheddar and onion crisps. He orders a lager, and we settle down in a corner. \u201cThis is a nice boozer, to be fair. Right up my street,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to keep up with Dyer, he\u2019s got so many projects on the go. As well as Rivals, there\u2019s the Sky reality show The Dyers\u2019 Caravan Park<\/a>, in which he and his daughter, Dani, attempt to manage the Priory Hill caravan park on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent; One Last Deal<\/a>, a single-actor thriller about a football agent on his uppers; The Siege, a Channel 4 drama he\u2019s currently shooting about the six-day standoff at the Iranian embassy in 1980; Nobody\u2019s Fool, a new Traitors-esque ITV gameshow with Rivals co-star Emily Atack \u2026 and on it goes. He\u2019s had to call a halt to Live and Let Dyers, the podcast he co-hosted with Dani, because there simply weren\u2019t enough hours in the day.<\/p>\n

To be fair, Dyer has always put a shift in. You won\u2019t find him talking about the art or his technique; it\u2019s always the job and the money. You sense he remembers how much he\u2019s been paid for every bit of work, whether it\u2019s a gameshow (\u00a3100k for The Wall), EastEnders (about \u00a3250,000 a year) or Who Do You Think You Are?, in which he discovered he was related to Thomas Cromwell and Edward III. \u201cI got 18 grand for that. I don\u2019t really give a fuck about my distant relatives, but the money was good. I think the producers were more impressed that I was related to the king than me. I was more impressed with Cromwell, because he was working class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dyer with Katherine Parkinson in season two of Rivals.double quotation mark\u2018I don\u2019t want to do no spoilers, but Lizzie asks him if he wants to come in for fish fingers.\u2019 He stops. \u2018That\u2019s not a euphemism\u2019<\/p>\n

Occasionally, he\u2019ll contribute to a classic, as with Who Do You Think You Are? And is the case with Rivals. In fact, he more than contributes. Dyer\u2019s Freddie is the heartbeat of the show, and increasingly so in the second series, where the big question is whether Freddie and sweet, brow-beaten love interest Lizzie will get together. Dyer isn\u2019t giving anything away. \u201cI don\u2019t want to do no spoilers, but Lizzie asks him if he wants to come in for fish fingers.\u201d He stops, worried he\u2019s already said too much. \u201cThat\u2019s not a euphemism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freddie is so different from most of Dyer\u2019s characters. He\u2019s still best known for self-destructive brutes such as Tommy Johnson in 2004\u2019s The Football Factory and Jack in 2025\u2019s Marching Powder<\/a>. In both films, directed by Nick Love, he plays a football hooligan. Dyer says that they shot two different endings for The Football Factory. In one, Tommy, having been savagely beaten and his friend Zeberdee killed, walks away from the violence. In the final version, Tommy asks himself: \u201cAfter all that, you really do have to ask yourself if it was all worth it?\u201d before answering: \u201cCourse it fucking was!\u201d I tell him I wish they\u2019d stuck with the first ending.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith these films, we\u2019re not saying it\u2019s right or wrong, we\u2019re just highlighting it,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re saying this shit happens, it\u2019s tribalism, it\u2019s disenfranchised youth. There\u2019s something about men getting together and drinking. There\u2019s violence in the air.\u201d Dyer insists these characters have never glamorised violence, but I\u2019m not so sure. Marching Powder feels as if it\u2019s at least part inspired by his own life. Middle-aged Jack\u2019s cocaine-fuelled hedonism threatens his marriage. Dyer thinks the film should not have focused so much on hooliganism. \u201cIt dropped off when it was about the football violence, because I felt this was more about a man who was wrapped up in addiction patterns trying to save his marriage. We made a mistake in focusing so much on the violence.\u201d Then again, he says, what does he know. It turned out to be his most profitable movie. \u201cCritically it got ruined. I\u00a0knew it would. We wasn\u2019t making it for the critics. But it\u2019s my biggest success to date. We took over \u00a33m at the box office. Unheard of for one of my films to have taken that sort of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2004\u2019s The Football Factory. Photograph: Vertigo Films\/AllstarWith Nigel Lindsay in Harold Pinter\u2019s The Homecoming at the Almeida, 2008. Photograph: Tristram Kenton\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Marching Powder feels horribly resonant in a country where football violence is on the rise (an 18% increase in the number of reported incidents in matches across England and Wales in 2024\/25, compared with 2023\/24); the teachers\u2019 union, NASUWT, recently warned of a \u201cmasculinity crisis\u201d in UK schools where almost a quarter of female teachers reported misogynistic attacks from pupils; and the Tate brothers are regarded as role models by many boys and young men.<\/p>\n

His 12-year-old son, Arty, named after the Sopranos\u2019 Artie Bucco, plays Jack\u2019s son in Marching Powder. Dyer says he worries for him growing up in today\u2019s climate where kids are thinking with AI rather than their brains. \u201cWe\u2019re regressing. Back in the day, if you didn\u2019t know something you couldn\u2019t just punch it into a phone and find out the answer. It just makes us fucking lazy, you know what I mean? It\u2019s detrimental for society and for our brains.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how does he encourage Arty to get off his phone? \u201cI do as much as I can with him. We go out on our bikes together. And I\u2019ve taught him to play chess. I have to let him win, because he\u2019s such a bad loser.\u201d But he admits it\u2019s a struggle. \u201cNow the kids sit indoors on a beautiful day playing games. There\u2019s no incentive to go out now, and knock on your mate\u2019s door. They can communicate in their headphones all day long in their house, shooting shit, and this is what we have to adapt to as parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Dyer was growing up on an estate in Custom House, east London, his first love was football. It still is. He is a West Ham devotee. Much to his delight, last year Dani married club captain Jarrod Bowen. Dyer has said that he probably loves Bowen more than Dani does. At 48, he is a grandfather of three (Dani and Jarrod have two-year-old twin daughters, Summer and Star; her five-year-old son, Santiago, is from a previous relationship).<\/p>\n

Photograph: Jay Brooks\/The Guardiandouble quotation markThere were a lot of fights when he was growing up. Was he involved? \u2018Not really. I could make people laugh. If you\u2019ve got the hardest kids on side, you don\u2019t need to fight\u2019<\/p>\n

He is so famous for playing football hooligans, I wonder if he ever was one. \u201cNah, was I fuck. I was fascinated by it as a child and I knew people who were, but no.\u201d Do people assume he was? \u201cProbably \u2013 that\u2019s what fame is, isn\u2019t it? People have a perception of you because of what they\u2019ve seen you in.\u201d Growing up, there were two tough schools opposite each other, and rival gangs were always kicking off. \u201cThere was lot of fighting.\u201d Was he involved? \u201cNot really, because I could make people laugh. I felt that was a power. And if you\u2019ve got the hardest kids on side, you don\u2019t need to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young Dyer had a messy childhood. When he was nine, his father left home for another woman. It turned out he had a secret family with her, and had been managing the two in tandem. Although his relationship with his father has recovered recently (he now calls him his \u201cbest mate\u201d), for decades they didn\u2019t talk. The man he knew as his maternal grandad (his mother\u2019s stepfather) became a father figure, but he died when Dyer was young. He began to believe that all the men he relied on in his life would walk out on him or die.<\/p>\n

Dyer has done plenty of therapy, talks freely now about his abandonment issues, and believes that his fear of losing loved ones explains much of his self-destructive behaviour. Remarkably, he and Jo are still together \u2013 36 years and three children on, and 10 years into their marriage.<\/p>\n

Dyer with his wife, Jo Mas, 2023. Photograph: Anthony Harvey\/Shutterstockdouble quotation markShe was the fittest girl in school, really smart, and everything I wasn\u2019t. I was the scruffy kid, single-parent family, free school dinners <\/p>\n

He admits it\u2019s not been easy for her. In 2000, she kicked him out of their home and briefly denied him access to Dani after he had high-profile affairs. They lived apart for almost three years. When they reconciled, it was on very different terms. For one thing, Jo controlled the family finances. Dyer not only thinks he\u2019s lucky that Jo let him back into her life, he still can\u2019t believe they got together in the first place. \u201cShe was the fittest girl in the school, and she didn\u2019t talk to me for two years. She was the dancer and really smart, and everything I wasn\u2019t. I was the scruffy kid, single-parent family, free school dinners. She came from a loving home, she was the best at everything. Back in the day, I had no hope of everything. I didn\u2019t feel comfortable in my skin. I was fucking around, I\u00a0was stealing a lot of stuff, I was smoking weed.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what happened? \u201cWe was in the same drama class. I was really good at drama and I think that maybe turned her on a bit. All of a sudden she asked me out on a date in the third year. I couldn\u2019t fucking believe it. None of the school could believe it, either. Even now, we\u2019re still opposites, complete chalk and cheese. We went to Pizza Hut and she had to pay for it because I had no money. She bought me a cappuccino and I felt so posh, and that was the start of our very, very long relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Dyer\u2019s best performances have been as himself in documentaries and reality shows. Last year, he was wonderful in The Assembly, an ITV show in which celebrities are interviewed by autistic, neurodivergent and learning disabled people. Dyer was warm, funny and self-laceratingly honest when quizzed. \u201cI really enjoyed The Assembly. There\u2019s no filter. There\u2019s no bollocks in the room. I\u2019d like to see Keir Starmer on there. I\u2019d like to see people who need to be held to account, because you can\u2019t talk in riddles on The Assembly. Starmer\u2019s very good at talking and you learn fuck all from what\u2019s he said. It\u2019s an art.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody says it as it is like Danny Dyer. Perhaps most memorably he nailed David Cameron for Brexit in a way that the cleverest political commentators couldn\u2019t begin to. In June 2018, two years after Cameron\u2019s ill-conceived referendum resulted in Britain voting to leave the EU, Dyer took the former PM to task on a live TV show. \u201cSo what\u2019s happened to that twat David Cameron who called it on? Let\u2019s be fair \u2026 how comes he can scuttle off? Where is he?\u201d Dyer asked. \u201cHe\u2019s in Europe, in Nice, with his trotters up, yeah? Where is the geezer? I think he should be held to account for it. Twat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photograph: Jay Brooks\/The Guardiandouble quotation markSuccessive governments have fucked us. They make sure we\u2019re all pointing fingers at each other, whether that\u2019s down to race or immigration <\/p>\n

I tell him I\u2019ve got an important question, and produce a hand-drawn diagram of my \u201ctwatometer\u201d to see where he rates today\u2019s politicians alongside Cameron. \u201cTwatometer? Well, Cameron\u2019s a twat because when the vote didn\u2019t go his way he fucked off. So that\u2019s what makes him a twat more than anybody.\u201d Where would he place Starmer on the twatometer? \u201cErrr \u2026\u201d He stops, and suddenly I see a new Dyer in front of me \u2013 Danny the diplomat. \u201cI don\u2019t know whether I want to get into this clickbait, I\u2019ll be straight with you. It\u2019s going to feed into this shit I don\u2019t really want to get into, you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

But Danny the diplomat doesn\u2019t have much staying power. \u201cThis is my main issue. Successive governments have fucked us. And what they do is make sure we\u2019re all pointing fingers at each other, whether that\u2019s down to race or immigration. So we end up fighting each other, and not coming together and pointing the finger at the right people. That\u2019s the fucking point.\u201d He\u2019s on a roll. \u201cLook at Labour. They\u2019re meant to be for working-class people and they\u2019ve gone straight for minorities and pensioners and disability benefits. All these things Labour were supposed to stand up for. And you go, hold on a minute, I thought the Tories were the cunts. What the Tories did during Covid was fucking abhorrent. It\u2019s the only reason Starmer got in. It was all there for him on a plate. And now he\u2019s managed to get both the left and the right to fucking hate his guts. I just want someone to speak and you believe them, and we haven\u2019t had that in so long I\u2019ve forgotten what it\u2019s like.\u201d Finally, he comes to a stop.<\/p>\n

With Jessie Wallace in EastEnders, 2022. Photograph: Jack Barnes\/BBC\/ Kieron McCarron<\/p>\n

The first question on The Assembly was asked by a nervous young woman called Chardonnay. \u201cShould we have a little cuddle?\u201d Dyer asked. And they did, then she delivered a zinger. \u201cWhen Jo kicked you out, she emptied your shared bank account. Do you still have a shared bank account now? And you have to answer honestly.\u201d Dyer smiled and put a hand over his eyes in mock horror. He then said: \u201cShe did kick me out, cos I was a prick, and she deserved better, and I was an idiot, and sometimes I would go out, and I\u2019d get off my head, take drugs and I wouldn\u2019t come home for three days. And she had every right to throw me out. She controls everything now.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markWhat drugs was he taking? \u2018Mostly cocaine and diazepam. I just ate pills like Smarties\u2019<\/p>\n

At the time, Dyer became such a mess that he stopped getting work. He couldn\u2019t be trusted; he was broke and the bailiffs visited the family home. Then came his rehabilitation with EastEnders. And then he lost it again. This time he reached his lowest ebb. Dyer says he found the level of fame difficult to cope with; people change in the way they treat you, tempting you with all sorts of stuff that\u2019s bad for you. If you\u2019re weak, he says, you succumb. And boy, did he succumb. There were tales of threesomes, an affair with a well-known pop star, dick pics, sex texts, you name it. And, of course, there were drugs. \u201cYou get to a level of fame where you forget who you are. And I was taking a lot of drugs with different people because I was famous for taking drugs, so I was just feeding my addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was he taking? \u201cMostly cocaine and diazepam.\u201d He says diazepam was the biggest problem. \u201cI used to eat seven 10 milligram pills at a time. Just ate them like fucking Smarties. I\u2019d done most drugs up till that point.\u201d Dyer takes a tiny sip of his lager. He\u2019s still on his first pint. \u201cIt\u2019s a good job I didn\u2019t hang out with a lot of crackheads or I think I would have been more of a crackhead. If you\u2019re surrounded by crackheads, you stand no hope.\u201d I ask if he\u2019s ever mainlined drugs. \u201cNo. Nah. Never. Could never bring myself to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, he and Jo finally married, but he was in a terrible way. A few months later, they split up again. \u201cI\u00a0got to a point when I said, \u2018I\u2019m going to die, I\u2019m destroying everybody around me.\u2019\u201d At the age of 39, he went into rehab in South Africa. He thinks it saved his life, and it certainly saved his marriage. Did he think he\u2019d screwed everything up? \u201cYeah, course. Absolutely. That\u2019s why you go into these places. You don\u2019t go into a psychiatric fucking unit if everything\u2019s running sweet. Some people get committed, some people have to have an intervention, whereas I took myself there. I knew.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge was coming off diazepam. \u201cIt\u2019s worse than heroin. They had to wean me off. It stops anxiety, but we need anxiety and fear and sadness. When you pop a diazepam, it\u2019s like a blanket and it covers up these receptors so you don\u2019t feel much. And when they take you off them in rehab, the receptors come so alive.\u201d He says it was horrific. Dyer was taught mindfulness to compensate for the drugs. \u201cWe had to go outside and pick up a leaf, and study all the veins in it. I thought, what the fuck are we doing here? It was actually training your brain to calm that fear. You\u2019re concentrating in the moment rather than thinking of all the shit that has happened in the past or could happen. It\u2019s about being able to sit with your own thoughts and feelings, and that\u2019s something I\u2019m very comfortable with now. I think they should teach kids this at school.\u201d There\u2019s a lovely moment on The Assembly when he shows everyone how to meditate. \u201cIf you talk about meditation to most people, they laugh. They go, \u2018I haven\u2019t got time. What, you\u2019re sitting here going, Mmmmmm?\u2019 But it\u2019s all about breathing. Oxygen is a fucking healer. It\u2019s important. Now and again when I\u00a0have these moments of anxiety, I just breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says it was in rehab in Cape Town that he learned what it was like to be a regular person again. \u201cI had to get out of the country. The fame and the ego were raging, so I needed to go somewhere where no one knew the fuck who I was. You\u2019re broken down again. You\u2019re a number in there. No one gives a shit about your job or your ego. You\u2019re scrubbing toilets, you work in the kitchen. It\u2019s a bit like prison.\u201d In the psychiatric unit, he says, he was put back together again. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean you skip out of the place going, \u2018I\u2019m cured,\u2019 and everyone\u2019s happy with you. Then you have to address the people you\u2019ve hurt and the pain you\u2019ve caused. This is still something me and my missus work through.\u201d<\/p>\n

I head off for a wee. Dyer is still nursing the same pint. By the time I get back, he\u2019s public property.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou out on the piss today, you two?\u201d he asks a couple of middle-aged women taking selfies with him.<\/p>\n

Then their fellas walk through to join them. \u201cThey were hiding,\u201d one of the women says. \u201cWould you mind a photo with all of us?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry! It makes me look good with the Guardian. I paid you to come up to me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Main image: coat, by Private White VC<\/a>. Heart image: trench, by Mackintosh<\/a>. Seated image: Suit, by Paul Smith; <\/a>shirt, by A Day\u2019s March<\/a>; tie, by Rokit Vintage<\/a>. Above: full look, by Louis Vuitton<\/a>. Rings throughout: Dyer\u2019s own. Stylist: Peter Bevan. Set styling: Victoria Twyman. Grooming: Alexis Day. Stylist\u2019s assistant: Charlotte Gornall. Photograph: Jay Brooks\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

He does a short video message for the pub manager\u2019s brother because it\u2019s his birthday, and then he\u2019s back with me. \u201cI\u2019ve lost my train of thought. Right, let\u2019s talk about Rivals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why does he think it\u2019s so popular? \u201cThe 80s is such a great decade \u2013 big shoulder pads, big hair, glitter everywhere, a lot of smoking, great decade for film, brilliant music. And we\u2019ve really captured it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halfway through shooting the second series, Jilly Cooper died. What impact did that have? \u201cIt was a complete shock to everybody. We were told in the morning, and we were all a bit freaked. There were some tears, and then we continued. It\u2019s what Jilly would have wanted. The producers said: \u2018We\u2019ll raise a glass to her at the end of the day, because she loved her champagne,\u2019 so we did. At the funeral, she didn\u2019t want no one to wear dark colours.\u201d What did he wear? \u201cI went for a tuxedo with a low T-shirt and a pink scarf. She would have loved a flash of pink.\u201d And a flash of chest hair? \u201cYeah, she loved a bit of chest. We really did celebrate her that day. It was very emotional.\u201d Do people see him differently since Rivals? \u201cI think so. Certainly critically. People are going, \u2018Oh, maybe he\u2019s not just a caricature and he can act a little bit.\u2019\u201d You play gentle people beautifully, I say. \u201cWell, I am quite a gentle person in real life.\u201d Is he closer to Freddie or the wired-up coke heads he has played? \u201cFreddie. All day long. Anybody who knows me absolutely knows I\u2019m Freddie.\u201d The thing he loves about Freddie, and Mick Carter in EastEnders, is they\u2019re not afraid to show their emotions. \u201cI like masculinity in men and taking the piss out of each other, but it\u2019s also important to be able slip into that feminine side and open up about your feelings. We\u2019re brought up as young boys to be boys, but not men.\u201d In other words, many men never grow up. \u201cYou have to find out how to be a decent man. We\u2019re so frightened of being too cuddly or affectionate or crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does he cry much? \u201cYes. I\u2019m a sensitive soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, we catch up on the phone. Initially, I get Diplomatic Danny. \u201cDon\u2019t do any of that clickbait stuff, Simon, I trust you.\u201d But you can only keep Laddish Danny down for so long. A couple of days ago, he was captured on TV at West Ham in the quarter-final of the FA Cup dancing, with a grandchild in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, singing along with the crowd: \u201cBowen\u2019s on fire; and he\u2019s shagging Dani Dyer.\u201d Not\u00a0surprisingly, it went viral. \u201cYeah,\u201d he says sheepishly. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t ideal for me, that, you know what I mean? I had all my grandkids with me. I\u2019ll be aware of it next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markIt\u2019s very difficult to take on the elites. So it\u2019s all just about loving people, loving life <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about what Dyer said about having\u00a0to learn how to be a man. Does he think, in this era of toxic masculinity, he could be a positive role model? No, he says, that\u2019s where we get him wrong. Because he\u2019s played football thugs, there are rightwing hooligans who claim him as their own, and similarly because he called out Cameron for having his trotters up, there are those on the left who think he\u2019s championing their cause. The truth is, he says, he\u2019s just struggling through life like all of us, learning from mistakes, trying to do the best he can for his family. \u201cAll I can focus on is the people around me and my son. That\u2019s real life to me. I\u2019m not on some fucking mission to change society. I\u2019ll speak out about stuff now and again, but I\u2019m not on a crusade. I\u2019m just looking after\u00a0the\u00a0young men around me and hopefully I\u2019ll lead by example.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we met in the pub, I told him my older daughter was a fan of his, but she was disappointed that he did gambling commercials. Again, he says, you\u2019ve got the wrong man if you\u2019re looking for a paragon of virtue. He\u2019s known what it\u2019s like to be broke, and he knows it could happen again at any time. So when there\u2019s an opportunity to cash in, he\u2019s going to do it. \u201cI understand there\u2019s morality around it, but let me tell you now, there\u2019s other shit to worry about than a fucking gambling advert.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since we met, the world has become an even more dangerous place. \u201cLook what\u2019s going on with Trump and his threat of nuclear war. All of our politicians, all of them, have fucked us over and over again. And we just seem lost,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

So the idea that he, Danny Dyer, can make a difference to society, or encourage a move away from toxic masculinity, is ludicrous to him. \u201cProtest makes no difference, clearly. It\u2019s very difficult to take on the elites. So it\u2019s all just about loving people, loving life, getting good people around you. Enjoy your fucking life, man. Enjoy it. Squeeze as much joy out of it as you possibly can. D\u2019you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivals season two launches on Disney+ on 15 May, with a three\u2011episode premiere<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Danny Dyer is dressed in white and carrying a huge bouquet of flowers when I drop in on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-645116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}