Japes Rupara 
Editor
Marching Powder, the East End legend speaks about playing a different kind of romantic lead
In his new film Marching Powder, Danny Dyer plays Jack, an ageing, Class A-hoovering hooligan at a turning point, forced to choose between his two great loves: doing loads of cocaine and headbutting provincial football fans and Dani, his increasingly exasperated wife.
For Dyer, it’s something of a return to his roots as well as a kind of dialogue with the trajectory of his career. The actor has gone from Harold Pinter’s protégé to the apotheosis of early noughties lads mag excesses to, most recently, earning himself a well-deserved revaluation with a post-EastEnders turn in Disney+ smut-fest Rivals that flooded his DMs with amorous admirers. But, in reuniting with The Football Factory writer-director Nick Love, Dyer’s been left to tussle with the legacy of the cult films that made his name as well as an industry that still sees him as an outsider.
Dyer knows what people expect from him, but, to him, Marching Powder isn’t about nostalgia—it’s a reckoning. “I was watching the BAFTAs the other night,” he says. “And I just thought: What the fuck is all this? Everything’s so elitist now. We’re living in a mad time with the working classes not having their voices heard. Who are they making these fucking films for?”
Which, of course, is exactly what he wants to talk about.
GQ: For most of the last decade you’ve been best known for EastEnders, cementing your status as something of a national treasure. How does it feel to swap pulling pints in Walford to be back nutting lads in a film about football violence?
Danny Dyer: Well, fuck me, look: It’s kind of you to say that ‘national treasure’ thing. I’m very grateful for that job on EastEnders, it got me out of a lot of trouble. And a lot of the stuff I did there, it was important and I relished that. The early era, anyway. Towards the end, I fucking hated it. I’d had enough. I struggled with how nine-to-five it was, to be honest, and I’m ambitious. So I rolled the dice
It’s been 18 years since your last film with Nick Love, director of Marching Powder. What’s changed?
I felt we had unfinished business. He sent me the script and I had to do it. You’ve got to remember that, when you’re on EastEnders, you don’t exist as an actor anymore. You’re crossed off every casting list. And so when this one came along… I’m so proud of this piece of work, mate. Have you seen it? I think a lot of people were expecting The Football Factory 2.
Well, when news of the production first broke, Marching Powder was teased as a kind of sequel. But it’s more of a romcom than anything else.
It’s a working-class love story. And it’s something different. A lot of the other films out at the moment, they’re just fucking beige. I think our audience is sick of people playing it safe. So we wanted to make a working-class film about working-class people doing working-class things and speaking the way working-class people do. I just think that’s quite rare at the moment. And there’s an appetite for it again. And yeah, we’re nodding to our old films, but we’re not sneering at it. And keeping it light because life is too dark now, anyway.
Of course, the ghost of The Football Factory looms over Marching Powder. When you watch it now, 21 years later, what do you see?
I was very excited about finally getting a lead role. Being trusted with that. It was a brave film. It was low budget and with a generation of great working-classactors. But I was a very, very different person then. This is at the height of my drug-taking — and I mean, look at the movies I was making. I wasn’t a fucking Blue Peter presenter. But I’ve done a lot of therapy since then, a lot of soul-searching. I’ve been famous for a long time and it does fuck your head up. You need to start being grateful for your family and your health. Being famous, it’s intoxicating. But you become a cartoon character as well. There’s a reason why most people who find fame go fucking potty. When The Football Factory came out, I was at least being honest with who I was. But it spiralled into madness, really.
One of the things that made that film stand out for me is that—much like Marching Powder—it was a film that was obsessed with words, easily as much as with gear or with fighting.
There’s some writers you get and it just works. I always said with Nick Love, it’s his brain and my mouth. I had it with Harold Pinter as well. And, you know, I’m not really a theatre man. I’m not one of them that’s well into literature, and all that. But, for some reason, with Pinter, I just got it. The musicality of it. It was like… I could say it easier. I could learn it quicker. You know what I mean?
There’s the rhythm of violence to it. I think that gets to Pinter’s understanding of the working class, being from Clapton. He knew that even in everyday, mundane conversation, something can feel like it was on the verge of kicking off.
I mean, what is a conversation? It’s a battle between people. It’s like we’re doing now: the rhythm of that, replying and listening… Some people, like Pinter or Nick, they get that down in writing to an art.
One of the ideas Marching Powder really taps into is the way men can get stuck in the same loop, chasing the same highs, staying at the party too long. And it’s a film about men who are addicted to the idea of themselves at their ‘peak’, whatever that means for them.
Oh, absolutely, mate. What is life? It’s just decision-making. And these are men stuck making bad decisions. It’s usually to do with drugs and drugs make you do stupid things. I mean, listen: some of the comments I’ve had — not a lot of ‘em, actually, but some — have said we’re glamorising drugs. There’s nothing glamorous about me sniffing white on my own in a portaloo, me on my knees in puddles of piss. But we’re not getting too heavy with the film. It could’ve been heavy, but to do it in a lighthearted way, taking the piss out of ourselves as men… That’s important, too. Because we’re fucking ridiculous.
One thing that was important, actually, was something we hadn’t done before in one of these films, and that was writing a very strong female voice. Stephanie [Leonidas, who plays Danny’s wife Dani in the film] is fucking amazing in this film. She absolutely nails it. You needed someone who could match my ridiculousness and she really does. I really hope people stick around for their love story and her big speech at the end because if they don’t, and they turn the fucker off, then it was never really for them anyway.
We’re both from the same part of East London and it’s just struck me that, in all my years of doing this, I think you’re the first person I’ve ever interviewed with my accent.
It’s been a pleasure hearing your accent ‘n’ all. It’s actually meant a lot to me because, look, I’ve been sat in a room contractually obliged to get interviewed by posh cunts all day. In the arts, seven per cent of us are working class. Fucking incredible. Because I might be slightly biased, but I think we’re the most creative people around. Got a bit of trauma there—I mean, gives you a bit of character, doesn’t it? But it worries me. Maybe there’s no belief at the moment. And there’s no avenues to get working-class people involved. There’s a whole generation of kids out there that feel like they’ve got no hope and they’re fucking lost. I think the arts is the first place they should turn. You don’t need to be academic. You just need to turn up and have a bit of something about you, a bit of character, and that will get you through, man. You show me a kid on a council estate without charisma. But there’s no avenues. That’s why they’re running around stabbing each other, killing each other over fuck-all.
It sounds cliché, but do you think your accent has held you back? You get stuck as a bit of comic relief rather than…
Rather than the leading man roles, yeah. You’re right. It’s important to not get stuck as the Cockney sidekick, surrounded by all these middle-class people.
Do you ever think you’ve been trapped by the ‘Danny Dyer’ persona?
Maybe. There’s a lot of horrible, nasty cunts out there on your television, and they get found out eventually, but I wasn’t good at putting the mask on for them. I was obviously a bit too real for fame, to be honest. I’ve always been honest about who I am and I think that’s why people love me or they fucking hate my guts. It doesn’t necessarily suit me, fame — because of who I am and the way I speak. I think in my industry, to keep getting jobs you need to act a certain way… And I’ve never really known what that is.
What do you think it is?
It’s probably not fucking swearing, is it? I don’t know. Being polite and impartial and saying fuck-all. You know, just being a total fucking no-mark. But if you’re not able to really be that person you come unstuck. Because when someone catches you coming out of a brass house or having a line of gear, you’re fucked. I’ll never change and I’m okay with that now… It’s what Pinter taught me: Just be you. Everyone else is taken. I’ll take that over being a no-mark any day.
Marching Powder is out in UK cinemas on Friday 7 March.
In his new film Marching Powder, Danny Dyer plays Jack, an ageing, Class A-hoovering hooligan at a turning point, forced to choose between his two great loves: doing loads of cocaine and headbutting provincial football fans and Dani, his increasingly exasperated wife.
For Dyer, it’s something of a return to his roots as well as a kind of dialogue with the trajectory of his career. The actor has gone from Harold Pinter’s protégé to the apotheosis of early noughties lads mag excesses to, most recently, earning himself a well-deserved revaluation with a post-EastEnders turn in Disney+ smut-fest Rivals that flooded his DMs with amorous admirers. But, in reuniting with The Football Factory writer-director Nick Love, Dyer’s been left to tussle with the legacy of the cult films that made his name as well as an industry that still sees him as an outsider.
Dyer knows what people expect from him, but, to him, Marching Powder isn’t about nostalgia—it’s a reckoning. “I was watching the BAFTAs the other night,” he says. “And I just thought: What the fuck is all this? Everything’s so elitist now. We’re living in a mad time with the working classes not having their voices heard. Who are they making these fucking films for?”
Which, of course, is exactly what he wants to talk about.
GQ: For most of the last decade you’ve been best known for EastEnders, cementing your status as something of a national treasure. How does it feel to swap pulling pints in Walford to be back nutting lads in a film about football violence?
Danny Dyer: Well, fuck me, look: It’s kind of you to say that ‘national treasure’ thing. I’m very grateful for that job on EastEnders, it got me out of a lot of trouble. And a lot of the stuff I did there, it was important and I relished that. The early era, anyway. Towards the end, I fucking hated it. I’d had enough. I struggled with how nine-to-five it was, to be honest, and I’m ambitious. So I rolled the dice
It’s been 18 years since your last film with Nick Love, director of Marching Powder. What’s changed?
I felt we had unfinished business. He sent me the script and I had to do it. You’ve got to remember that, when you’re on EastEnders, you don’t exist as an actor anymore. You’re crossed off every casting list. And so when this one came along… I’m so proud of this piece of work, mate. Have you seen it? I think a lot of people were expecting The Football Factory 2.
Well, when news of the production first broke, Marching Powder was teased as a kind of sequel. But it’s more of a romcom than anything else.
It’s a working-class love story. And it’s something different. A lot of the other films out at the moment, they’re just fucking beige. I think our audience is sick of people playing it safe. So we wanted to make a working-class film about working-class people doing working-class things and speaking the way working-class people do. I just think that’s quite rare at the moment. And there’s an appetite for it again. And yeah, we’re nodding to our old films, but we’re not sneering at it. And keeping it light because life is too dark now, anyway.
Of course, the ghost of The Football Factory looms over Marching Powder. When you watch it now, 21 years later, what do you see?
I was very excited about finally getting a lead role. Being trusted with that. It was a brave film. It was low budget and with a generation of great working-classactors. But I was a very, very different person then. This is at the height of my drug-taking — and I mean, look at the movies I was making. I wasn’t a fucking Blue Peter presenter. But I’ve done a lot of therapy since then, a lot of soul-searching. I’ve been famous for a long time and it does fuck your head up. You need to start being grateful for your family and your health. Being famous, it’s intoxicating. But you become a cartoon character as well. There’s a reason why most people who find fame go fucking potty. When The Football Factory came out, I was at least being honest with who I was. But it spiralled into madness, really.
One of the things that made that film stand out for me is that—much like Marching Powder—it was a film that was obsessed with words, easily as much as with gear or with fighting.
There’s some writers you get and it just works. I always said with Nick Love, it’s his brain and my mouth. I had it with Harold Pinter as well. And, you know, I’m not really a theatre man. I’m not one of them that’s well into literature, and all that. But, for some reason, with Pinter, I just got it. The musicality of it. It was like… I could say it easier. I could learn it quicker. You know what I mean?
There’s the rhythm of violence to it. I think that gets to Pinter’s understanding of the working class, being from Clapton. He knew that even in everyday, mundane conversation, something can feel like it was on the verge of kicking off.
I mean, what is a conversation? It’s a battle between people. It’s like we’re doing now: the rhythm of that, replying and listening… Some people, like Pinter or Nick, they get that down in writing to an art.
One of the ideas Marching Powder really taps into is the way men can get stuck in the same loop, chasing the same highs, staying at the party too long. And it’s a film about men who are addicted to the idea of themselves at their ‘peak’, whatever that means for them.
Oh, absolutely, mate. What is life? It’s just decision-making. And these are men stuck making bad decisions. It’s usually to do with drugs and drugs make you do stupid things. I mean, listen: some of the comments I’ve had — not a lot of ‘em, actually, but some — have said we’re glamorising drugs. There’s nothing glamorous about me sniffing white on my own in a portaloo, me on my knees in puddles of piss. But we’re not getting too heavy with the film. It could’ve been heavy, but to do it in a lighthearted way, taking the piss out of ourselves as men… That’s important, too. Because we’re fucking ridiculous.
One thing that was important, actually, was something we hadn’t done before in one of these films, and that was writing a very strong female voice. Stephanie [Leonidas, who plays Danny’s wife Dani in the film] is fucking amazing in this film. She absolutely nails it. You needed someone who could match my ridiculousness and she really does. I really hope people stick around for their love story and her big speech at the end because if they don’t, and they turn the fucker off, then it was never really for them anyway.
We’re both from the same part of East London and it’s just struck me that, in all my years of doing this, I think you’re the first person I’ve ever interviewed with my accent.
It’s been a pleasure hearing your accent ‘n’ all. It’s actually meant a lot to me because, look, I’ve been sat in a room contractually obliged to get interviewed by posh cunts all day. In the arts, seven per cent of us are working class. Fucking incredible. Because I might be slightly biased, but I think we’re the most creative people around. Got a bit of trauma there—I mean, gives you a bit of character, doesn’t it? But it worries me. Maybe there’s no belief at the moment. And there’s no avenues to get working-class people involved. There’s a whole generation of kids out there that feel like they’ve got no hope and they’re fucking lost. I think the arts is the first place they should turn. You don’t need to be academic. You just need to turn up and have a bit of something about you, a bit of character, and that will get you through, man. You show me a kid on a council estate without charisma. But there’s no avenues. That’s why they’re running around stabbing each other, killing each other over fuck-all.
It sounds cliché, but do you think your accent has held you back? You get stuck as a bit of comic relief rather than…
Rather than the leading man roles, yeah. You’re right. It’s important to not get stuck as the Cockney sidekick, surrounded by all these middle-class people.
Do you ever think you’ve been trapped by the ‘Danny Dyer’ persona?
Maybe. There’s a lot of horrible, nasty cunts out there on your television, and they get found out eventually, but I wasn’t good at putting the mask on for them. I was obviously a bit too real for fame, to be honest. I’ve always been honest about who I am and I think that’s why people love me or they fucking hate my guts. It doesn’t necessarily suit me, fame — because of who I am and the way I speak. I think in my industry, to keep getting jobs you need to act a certain way… And I’ve never really known what that is.
What do you think it is?
It’s probably not fucking swearing, is it? I don’t know. Being polite and impartial and saying fuck-all. You know, just being a total fucking no-mark. But if you’re not able to really be that person you come unstuck. Because when someone catches you coming out of a brass house or having a line of gear, you’re fucked. I’ll never change and I’m okay with that now… It’s what Pinter taught me: Just be you. Everyone else is taken. I’ll take that over being a no-mark any day.
Marching Powder is out in UK cinemas on Friday 7 March.
