Danny Dyer: I'm constantly changing EastEnders scripts because the writers are "quite middle class"
The actor also reveals that the BBC1 soap's gruelling schedule left him in need of medical assistance
EastEnders' man of the moment says that the now-legendary Danny Dyer-isms were introduced by him.
“I made the job hard for myself because I thought when I come into it, I want to bring back a bit of the East End," Danny Dyer says on tomorrow night's edition of The Jonathan Ross Show. "They’re good writers there but they’re quite middle class people, so I’m constantly changing the dialogue.
"I’m freaking their nut out and they have meetings over the word ‘boat race’ [cockney rhyming slang for ‘face’].” And as for viewers who may not follow his cockney rhyming slang, Dyer jokes, “Let them Google it. It means they’re paying attention!”
Danny Dyer also reveals that the BBC1 soap's heavy filming schedule left him so ill that he needed medical help.
“It was tough last year. They rinsed the life out of me and I appreciate it, but towards the end of it, I’d done 170-odd episodes. Basically, I was so exhausted that I s**t my pants," the actor reveals on this weekend's Jonathan Ross Show. "I got so ill. I was so exhausted that I was spewing up and the dressing room was like a crime scene. They had to get the doctors out and everything. I wasn’t allowed to leave until the doctor came and he said, ‘he’s exhausted, you’ve got to let him go home.' It was just so emotional. I lost the plot.”
Over Christmas, Dyer – who plays Queen Vic landlord Mick Carter – was at the centre of a high profile plotline that saw his character hit by two bombshells: that his sister Shirley was really his mum and that wife Linda had been raped in the kitchen of the Walford pub.
On filming the emotional scenes, Dyer comments: “That’s the game we’re in – it affects your nut, it does. I’m not going to lie. We have a laugh now and again [in the show] – once every six months you smile, the rest of the time you just sob your heart out. I’m sick of crying. The thing for me is I go there – I go to some dark places in my nut, so that’s real tears. You go home and you’re still half crying."
The actor has won critical and popular acclaim for the role of Mick, with a win earlier this month for Serial Drama Performance at the National Television Awards. And Dyer himself recognises that EastEnders is proving to be something of a career renaissance:
"I can’t remember really having a career before EastEnders. It’s completely engulfed my life. Twenty-five years I’ve been an actor and I can’t remember none of it. It’s just taken over my life this role. And it’s like I’m getting a bit of recognition all of a sudden – it’s a strange feeling.”
Danny Dyer will be appearing alongside Mel & Sue, Dame Diana Rigg and Johnny Vegas on The Jonathan Ross Show airs on Saturday 31st January, at 9.20pm on ITV.
You can watch a 60-second rundown of next week's episodes of EastEnders below.
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