The Geezer Life: Danny Dyer
05 December 2009
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Danny Dyer is a 'geezer'. A geezer is a hard man, usually from a poor background, who gets heavy handed with little provocation and can have a bad attitude. Geezers swear a lot and talk in the 'Cockney' London dialect. Being a geezer is a tough life for Danny, though. He can't escape it. Everywhere he goes its the same thing: geezer. People meet him in the street and expect him to be a geezer. Others send him film roles with titles such as 'Cockney's Vs Zombies', which include especially written parts for him where he plays a geezer. He gets asked to front television shows where he interviews geezers and people ask him to do voiceovers in a geezer voice.
Other people have been typecast as geezers and it's made them big stars. Ray Winstone and ex-professional soccer player Vinnie Jones have made successful Hollywood careers out of it. But Danny doesn't do Hollywood. He's from London, and in London is where he stays. He's been committed to the UK film scene throughout his career and has appeared in over 20 homegrown films. Instead of thanks, however, he's been subjected to scorn from critics at every turn.
Danny, 32, admits he's made mistakes. He has played a lot of gangsters in films, and not always picked his roles well. He's made some TV programmes which have contributed to him largely become a parody of former characters he's played. He admits this and is working hard to make amends. Now all he needs is a few of the right scripts, and to be given a fresh break, and taken more seriously for the talent he clearly has.
In the flesh Danny is very personable, nothing like the popular image of him would suggest. Born in east London, Danny was discovered as a schoolboy by a local agent, who helped him win a part in TV drama 'Prime Suspect 3' as a 16 year old. Although he had no formal acting training, Danny worked hard and managed to form a career appearing in a number of TV shows and dramas. His first break into film came at the age of 22 when he played the character Moff, one of the main protagonists in 'Human Traffic'.
From here he won parts in other Brit flicks 'High Hells and Low Lifes' and 'Borstal Boy', after which he formed a lasting partnership with director Nick Love, who cast him in four successive films: Goodbye Charlie Bright (2001); The Football Factory (2004); The Business (2005); and Outlaw (2007). Love's films revolve around the underworld - drug dealers, football hooligans, gangsters and, of course, geezers. who Love's films - some of Danny's most successful work to date - are very British and have met with mixed reviews, some hail his ability to create entertaining movies about modern British ways of life, others say his work is shallow, hackneyed and cliche ridden.
In 2009 though, the pair parted company, with Love re-making gangster classic 'The Firm' and Danny choosing his own path. A foray into comedy with 'Doghouse' proved somewhat disastrous, but films such as 'Adulthood' and 'City Rats' have met with a certain critical acclaim, and Danny's most recent film 'Dead Man Running' was a surprise hit at the box office, showing he is increasingly currying favour with the public.
We caught up with Danny after a couple of Mojitos in order to get his take on 2009 and see what he's got planned for the next year.
Q: Your last film was 'Dead Man Running' with 50 Cent, how did that come about?
A: Originally we wanted to get Ray Winstone to play the part that 50 Cent has in the film. Ray was sort of up for it but he's so busy at the moment and we thought, 'You know what? Ray's a bit obvious'. We thought we needed to put someone in it who was really leftfield. Mine and Tamer's audience, the sort of films we make we bring in a certain audience, a following but.
I think the fact we got 50 Cent speaks volumes, and I think he's a fan of British movies. And we got [soccer players] Rio Ferdinand on board and Ashley Cole, who gave us the money. Rio knew 50 a little bit anyway, and that was the final piece in the jigsaw.
It was a tough shoot, actually, all night shoots, as the action takes place over one night, and it was freezing, it was filmed in November last year. It was tough, I gotta say.
Q: What was it like working with 50 Cent?
A: He was lovely. He was a really nice man. He came over, we had him for four days - he did it for nothing, just had to pay for his flight and entourage. But he came over and was very serious about it, had his own ideas. He really thought about his look and everything, it wasn't him just coming over and thinking, 'Oh b******s, just a f**king English film, whatever'. He took it very seriously, and he didn't f**k up once. He learned his dialogue and he had some nice speeches in there. So he was brilliant, a gentleman, approachable, quite humble - it's the people around him that were pretty f**king naughty.
Q: Did he have a large entourage?
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