Danny Dyer: East End Boy

by Joe Allan

  Danny didn’t have a particularly good time on the film. After a couple of very positive early meetings with the writers and director, things went rapidly downhill as soon as they arrived on set for filming. Nothing could detract from the fact it was a fairly small part for Danny at this stage in his career. It didn’t help that he felt isolated from what he describes in Sothcott and Mullinger’s book as ‘all the Lock, Stock mob’, who formed a fairly impenetrable clique. He recalls, ‘It was a strange experience. It wasn’t really one that I enjoyed much . . . they didn’t really know me – they knew of me, but they’d be playing cards at lunchtime and stuff, and I wasn’t really invited into their little circle.’

  He did make one contact on the production, however: the producer Matthew Vaughn, who was a big fan of Danny’s work. Danny recalls, ‘He gave me the book to Layer Cake, because obviously he was thinking of me playing the lead role.’ Unfortunately, a few misjudged comments about Vaughn’s friend and producing partner Guy Ritchie at the Mean Machine premiere soured their relationship and it would be Daniel Craig who would eventually take the lead in the movie version of Vaughn’s Layer Cake. (This was the part many believe first convinced producers of the Bond franchise that Craig had something special, and could have acted as his unofficial audition for the role of 007 in Casino Royale.) It wasn’t the first time and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time that Danny’s comments in interviews would lose him work or cause him trouble with the press.

  Like a big dark cloud, a general feeling of dissatisfaction was settling over Danny. In some respects, things looked like they were going well – he was always working – but, in truth, his career was in limbo. Far from being offered the prime roles he knew could progress his career to the next level – roles he was confident he was more than capable of playing – he was drowning in a sea of supporting parts. Danny was ready to carry a film, and as he watched other people playing characters he’d gone for and failed to land, or worse still, ones he knew he could handle but had never been offered, his ego started getting in the way. He wasn’t afraid to express his dissatisfaction with the roles he was being offered and soon that displeasure turned to bitterness. It affected his reputation and latterly, the amount of work he was offered.

  At the same time, he was in denial about his personal life. Despite living in a huge mansion with a beautiful new girlfriend, Danny was missing his family. Joanne and Dani were only a small part of his new, glamorous world, and he struggled with that loss. Yet again he found himself trying to numb the pain with pills and alcohol, while desperately looking for something to spark his imagination and rekindle his passion for acting. Both would get worse before they got better, but it is surprising that the first step in Danny’s eventual recovery, both personally and professionally, saw him return to stage acting, and involved him surrendering his fate, yet again, to one of British theatre’s most respected writers and directors. Danny was about to renew his acquaintance with Harold Pinter.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  STAGE TWO

  Danny, and many others, had seen his collaboration with Harold Pinter on Celebration as a professional turning point, believing it would lead to him tackling weightier material and greater challenges. He’d been pleased with what he’d achieved during the play’s London run and had come away from the project with renewed excitement about the myriad possibilities a career in acting could offer. His reinvigorated focus and drive also set him up nicely for his meeting with Nick Love.

  So, when the original cast of Celebration was given the opportunity to reunite and take the production to New York in 2001, they all jumped at it. The play would run for a handful of performances as part of a wider celebration of Pinter’s work, to be staged at the Lincoln Center in the heart of Manhattan. Under the guidance of Pinter, Danny felt certain he would get some of his old focus back, as there was no denying that the year between the play opening in London and its transfer to New York had seen his personal situation dramatically worsen.

  However, it appeared that the New York run would provide nothing of the sort. Since hooking up with Taylor, Danny had been enjoying the trappings of his new celebrity status and it wasn’t long before he started getting into more trouble. It is easy to speculate that this non-stop party lifestyle interfered with his work, but Danny’s career was by now virtually on hold: he refused any big jobs for months at a time, meaning he more or less disappeared from the big screen for the next three years. His ego had got the better of him and he preferred to live as a famous actor rather than work as a moderately successful one, stifling any professional progress he might have been making. With Taylor on his arm, his day-to-day business was starting to fill gossip columns and his night-time antics attracted the kind of press attention reserved for the likes of the Beckhams.

  Danny recalled this period in his autobiography: ‘Things went nuts for me. I was desperately unhappy to be parted from Joanne and Dani. In fact, I’ve never been lower in my life.’ He added, ‘I think that’s the worst thing on earth, being separated from your kid. Anything I’ve been through, all the b*llocks the press has thrown at me over the years . . . nothing comes close to losing your kid from your life. I’d take all the crap that has come my way a million times over rather than go through that again.’

  In early 2001, his relationship with Davinia Taylor seemed to be moving at breakneck speed, and the Mirror reported that Danny had proposed to Taylor while on safari in Kenya, claiming, ‘They haven’t set a date – but who knows if they will make it to the altar given [Davinia’s] record.’

  But as time passed, Danny was growing more and more uncomfortable with the celebrity couple status he now shared with Taylor, and longed to reconnect with his old life as a partner to Joanne and a loving father to Dani. Consequently, the call from Pinter could not have come at a better time. It gave Danny time to pause, draw breath and think about what was important to him.

  Danny had embraced Pinter’s mentorship and the friendship that blossomed between the pair. He spent time at Pinter’s home, socializing with the playwright and his wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, on numerous occasions. Their approval had made him feel worthy of the praise he was receiving as an actor and in turn, he gave some of the best performances of his career during Celebration’s London run.

  By the time of the New York transfer, things were very different. Drugs had become an everyday part of Danny’s life, and he was drinking more than ever. So, while he could take stock and appreciate what he was missing – namely, his family – the emotional pain it caused also compounded and continued his problems. (We have already seen how the death of his grandfather led him to turn to drugs as a method of coping.)

  When the play opened in New York in July 2001, Danny had almost hit rock bottom, and his personal issues were about to cross over into his professional life. It came to a head on 24 July, the night of his twenty-fourth birthday. Danny had brought Taylor with him and the pair embraced the party scene in the Big Apple with the same ravenous enthusiasm that they did in London. Unfortunately for Danny, this meant an unhealthy escalation in the type of drugs he was using. He had rapidly progressed from cannabis and ecstasy to cocaine, but knew he was taking it to another level as he was introduced to crack. He was going out every night with a group of wealthy socialites in the trendy Meatpacking District of the city before sneaking back to the cast’s hotel and taking ‘downers’ to enable him to get some sleep prior to the next day’s performance. He admitted to Jonathan Ross on his chat show, ‘I got too excited. I over-indulged. I thought I could over-indulge and walk out on stage and do a play. Of course, it’s just ridiculous.’

  On this particular occasion he was in an exceptionally bad way, arriving at the theatre just in time for his entrance, struggling on stage for his (mercifully silent) first scene. By the time his main speech came, Danny could barely think straight. He explained to Ross, ‘I was bang in trouble. I went on the stage. I didn’t have a clue what to say . . . I’m meant to interject into a conversation .
. . all the actors looked round and I haven’t got a clue what to say. I could see the fear in their eyes.’ During his big scene, playing a waiter who interrupts the main characters as they eat, Danny opened his mouth to say his lines . . . and nothing came out. His mind had gone blank, and not just for the lines of the play, but even for any form of improvisation. A Pinter play might be famous for its long pauses, but the audience expects there to be some dialogue either side of those pauses. Pinter’s plays run like clockwork, and without Danny’s lines the whole thing ground to a halt. He describes the feeling in his book, stating, ‘The worst thing about it was that I was looking down at the other actors and they all started to shrink into their seats and look at me as if to say, “Oh my God. Please don’t do this to us.” I was putting them right in the s**t.’ After a prompt from one of the other actors, Danny was jolted back on track and delivered his lines before leaving the stage. He stood sobbing in the wings – the relief, embarrassment and disappointment washing over him. The rest of the cast were quick to offer consolations, reassuring him it happens to the best of actors and not to let it affect him too much. It’s doubtful they would have been quite as sympathetic if they’d known the whole story.

  Keith Allen was far less forgiving. He was fully aware of Danny’s problems with drugs and booze, and took him aside and told him to pull himself together. Danny told Jonathan Ross, ‘You never forget that moment. I needed something to happen and all of a sudden I thought, “Well sort your life out – lively.” I had a great opportunity, I was a very lucky actor to be working with such people and I nearly blew it – just ’cos I wanted to get off my nut, basically.’ He concluded, ‘It takes a serious moment like that for you to go, “Right, rein it in . . . It will never happen to me again.”’

  It turned out to be just the wake-up call Danny needed, and he cleaned up his act – temporarily, at least – and finished the New York run without further incident. But the whole experience had been tainted for him, and any excitement he had been feeling about his return to stage acting had quickly evaporated. He went home to England feeling he had lost something vital in his performance: his natural fearlessness had vanished and he decided he didn’t want to do any more theatre. Afraid he would suffer another mental block, he was unwilling to challenge his insecurities or ever again put himself in a position that would make him feel so vulnerable and exposed.

  It was surprising, then, that within a year he would accept another direct invitation from Pinter, this time to join the cast of No Man’s Land for an extended run at the National Theatre in London, with a countrywide tour to follow. Danny thought long and hard, but knew it was too good an opportunity to turn down, having appreciated that ‘getting straight back on the horse’ was probably the best approach to conquering the stage fright that had crippled him in New York. The deciding factor may also have been the realization that a six-month run in a high-profile production, working with his mentor Harold Pinter, might just be the stabilizing influence he needed at this time and could help him forget the private sadness he felt at being separated from Joanne and Dani.

  Danny admits that he never really got to grips with the play in terms of understanding its subtle meanings and themes – even after a long rehearsal period, six months on stage and a handful of touring performances – but it definitely cured any mental block he’d been suffering. The whole experience was a blur, mostly due to the fact that, despite his best intentions, he was still partying virtually every night after the show. He had managed to steer clear of crack cocaine, but drugs were nevertheless a much-needed crutch.

  Danny’s professional unhappiness was deepened by a phone call he received from Pinter himself during the rehearsal period for the play. He told Danny he had been diagnosed with cancer and feared he was too ill to continue directing, handing over control to an assistant. This was a bitter blow to Danny, not only in terms of what it meant for the immediate future of the production, but on a much more personal level, as he recalled the slow, painful death of his granddad. He said in Straight Up, ‘It was a horrendous feeling when I thought about the struggle he had in front of him. I really liked Harold, I worshipped him, really. I loved how he didn’t conform to anything. I loved the fact that all these poncey critics were frightened of him … When he was part of the company, I felt strong; without him I felt weak.’

  Danny felt isolated from the National Theatre crowd, and had little in common with any of the other actors in the cast. To compensate, he became trapped in the same destructive cycle as in New York: leaving the theatre, partying all night, taking pills to get some sleep and waking just in time to return to work for curtain-up. He didn’t make any more catastrophic errors on stage, but during the first leg of the London run, on New Year’s Day, he got himself into hot water by giving his understudy advance warning that he was intending to feign illness and not show up for work. Danny in fact thought he was doing a good deed by giving his understudy a chance to take centre stage for one performance, but it just served as an illustration of his lack of understanding of theatre tradition, and further highlighted the fact he would always struggle to be fully accepted into their world. The rest of the cast were furious and ignored Danny off stage for practically the remainder of the run.

  This wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t for the fact he still had several national tour dates ahead of him. Playing to the National Theatre audiences was one thing, but the show did not have the same appeal when it started to tour the more provincial venues, and they found themselves playing to half-empty theatres across the country. Danny was getting more depressed, spending nights out alone and drinking heavily. This had its own unfortunate irony in the fact that, while he felt so low, Pinter had actually placed him in a much sought-after position. He relates in his autobiography how he met Jude Law, then at the peak of his career: ‘[He came] up to me in a nightclub going, “Dan, f*****g hell, you’re so lucky. What I’d give to be in your shoes and working with [Pinter].” I was looking at a multi-millionaire actor . . . asking me about Harold and envying me . . . I knew how lucky I was to be around Harold.’

  There was no doubting Danny’s private life was also in a very dark place, and his relationship with Davinia Taylor was about to come to an abrupt end, too. It had staggered on in a blur of drugs and alcohol, and throughout 2001 the tabloids speculated about the pair, Danny falling foul of several ‘kiss and tell’ stories, alleged affairs linking him to several other women. The Sunday Mirror reported he’d started a relationship with Billie Piper, although Danny would later insist that it was very brief, stating, ‘Me and Billie did have a thing going, but it was really low-key. We were just good friends.’ While many of the details about his time with Davinia remain firmly under wraps – Danny famously refused to even mention Taylor’s name in his autobiography in order to show respect to Joanne – there was no doubting it was a tempestuous affair, leaving Danny physically shattered and emotionally scarred.

  In the summer of 2002, Danny decided he had had enough. In the end, with little warning and no drama, he packed up what few belongings he had and moved back to his grandma’s house in Stratford. While it was a long time coming, this was the next vital stepping stone in his personal (and eventually professional) recovery. He would lose a further eight months of his life in another haze of drink and drugs, but he would come out the other end stronger and finally ready to greet the next important phase: returning to film acting and becoming a bankable leading man.

  Danny’s focus may have been returning to film and television, but he never lost his love of stage acting and the unique challenges and rewards it brought. He would take to the stage again, in another Pinter revival – of The Homecoming in 2008 – as well as starring in a critically acclaimed play about Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain entitled Kurt and Sid in 2009.

  As for Harold Pinter, since his death in 2008, Danny has often stated how important the great playwright was to him – both as a mentor and as a friend. He sums up their relationship in Straight Up,
saying, ‘independent of my respect for the bloke . . . I think it’s worth saying what his approval did for an actor. He opened me up to a whole new audience, and he brought me credibility.’ In another interview in the Guardian, he said, ‘I miss him . . . he was a f*****g tyrant . . . but he could get away with it because he was so enchanting . . . He was a good influence on me. He was the only person who I feared but loved. He had faith in me. He suffered all my s**t because he knew I was a talented actor . . . I learned so much from him that set me up for the rest of my career.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN

  While starring in Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land at the National Theatre, Danny spent the first half of 2002 trying to get his disastrous private life back onto an even keel. By May, his affair with Davinia Taylor was over: it had wrung him out and left his relationship with Joanne and Dani at an all-time low.

  In desperation, Danny would wait outside his old house, hoping to catch extra glimpses of his daughter as she returned from school – aside from the few times he was allowed to spend time with her – only to be blanked completely by Joanne. As always, his method of dealing with pain and rejection was to abuse his body: he drank vodka around the clock, helping jeopardize much of the headway he had made in his career over the previous decade. He had reconnected with all of his East London friends and was settling back into his old self-destructive routine. In his book, he sums it up perfectly, saying, ‘I felt like a shadow in my own life.’