Danny Dyer on the 'fear' and 'anxiety' he felt while filming new show Rivals

Ex-EastEnder Danny Dyer based character on Alan Sugar but struggles with two new challenges

Former Eastenders star Danny Dyer has told how he drew on the snobbery and classism he’s experienced throughout his acting career to play a rough diamond businessman in Rivals.

The soap favourite will become rough diamond Freddie Jones for the TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s famous 1980s bonkbuster. And one of the challenges involved in playing the electronics magnate - apart from having to grow a huge moustache - was having to learn Japanese.

Danny, 47, admits it nearly broke him. “I had a great guy on WhatsApp giving me voice notes, but I had a lot of fear around it,” he said. “I've never learned Japanese before. Why would I? Of course, I didn't quite know how to pronounce it. I did have one night where I thought, ‘I can't do this. They're gonna have to ADR it.’ But actually, I just put the work in.”

In the event they didn’t have to add the audio afterwards and it was the same for another scene which terrified him - involving a karaoke machine. Very early on in the filming process Danny had to belt out Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell in front of most of the cast. “I had a lot of anxiety around the Japanese and singing karaoke in front of everybody when I didn't really know them. It’s great though, it’s great for Fred. It really shows how clever he is and how smart he is. He’s a grafter. He’s a businessman. What he's done is pretty incredible, he's way ahead of his time.”

He thinks landing the part of Freddie could be a turning point in his career. “Playing a role where I look very different is important because I've not had many opportunities to do it and I think that that will maybe change a few people's perceptions of me.”

The actor said he drew on the snobbery and classism he’s experienced throughout his acting career to play a rough diamond businessman in Rivals.

Multi-millionaire Freddie, married to childhood sweetheart Valerie (Lisa McGrillis), is completely out of his depth among the toffs he meets in the Cotswolds.

“I have come across quite a lot of classism towards me that just spurred me on a little bit more, especially when I went into theatre,” he explained.

“I didn't really feel like I belonged. I never trained, you see, so I wasn't very good at the rehearsal process of sitting round a table and breaking down your subtext and why you're saying stuff. I'm a very instinctive actor so it's all about just getting up on my feet and saying words.”

In Rivals, family man Freddie has moved to Rutshire, in the heart of the Cotswolds, to give his children the life he never had.

“Freddie is a good man and he's a very, very rich man. He's the richest man in the show,” Dyer laughed. “I see him as being based on an Alan Sugar-type character in the sense that he does computers and satellites and all that sort of stuff so he's way ahead of his time.”

In the plot Valerie is a desperate social climber and despite making an enemy of all those who choose to humiliate her, Freddie is lonely in his marriage. Similarly lonely is Katherine Parkinson’s character Lizzie Vereker, an author trapped in a loveless union with preening TV presenter James. Katherine, best known as Jen in The IT Crowd, said that the slow-burn romance between Freddie and Lizzie was a joy to film - including the sex scenes. “I just didn't feel uncomfortable at all. I think I knew it was part of the story, I love playing those sorts of dynamics. I got on very well with Danny from the start - he’s a real delight.”

Danny, best known as Albert Square’s Mick Carter, says he’d never read a Jilly Cooper novel, but was aware of them. “I think it was the naughtiness of the books,” he laughed. “They came to me last minute, offered me the part, and I had to make a decision pretty quickly. I mean it was a no-brainer for me.”

The actor now reckons it’s one of the the best thing he’s ever done. “I really felt like I was working on something elite,” he explained. “Like this is television that can't be bettered in the way it's shot, the way it looks, the actors in it, the music, the relationships. It’s up there with some of the greatest telly that's ever been made.”

All episodes of Rivals available on Disney+ from 18 October

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