Danny Dyer revealed he was 'absolutely skint' and in a 'desperate' situation when he was offered his role in EastEnders.
The actor, who plays pub landlord Mick Carter on the show, said he barely had enough money to travel to meet the producers and feared the team asking him to buy a round of drinks.
Speaking on The Jonathan Ross Show, he said: “I didn’t have an audition, they rung me up, I had a touch. They rung me up and said ‘Listen, we want you to come in the show, take over the Queen Vic’. At the time I was skint and I just had about enough petrol money to get there, that’s the truth.
Kellie Bright and Danny Dyer as Mick and Linda Carter in EastEnders (Kieron McCarron/BBC)
“They thought I was a multimillionaire and I met them in the hotel and I walked in absolutely skint, not a bean about me. I thought, I hope they don’t ask me to get them a lager because I’ve got no dough. They sat me on a throne and said how great I was and how they wanted me to come in and take over the Vic and (I was) going to have a really big storyline about having a gay son.”
Danny admitted he was 'desperate' for the job and had to try hard not to show how eager he was to the producer.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I want to do a cartwheel in front of them’, but I thought, ‘Play it down, don’t show your bolt too early.’ I went, ‘I’ll think about it’ and then I walked out and I did a couple of backflips on the way out!”
“I played it right down, I didn’t want to look desperate and I was desperate,” he said.
He said that if the role had not come up, he would have been forced to work as a labourer to make ends meet.
Danny Dyer was talking to Jonathan Ross (Ian West/PA)
“I might have had to go and load skips, Jon. I just couldn’t catch a cold, I was doing nightclub appearances.”
Danny has worked as an actor since he was 16, gaining experience in British films like Mean Machine and The Football Factory before he moved into documentaries such as Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men and then soap acting.
His character Mick was introduced to EastEnders by executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins on Christmas Day 2013, as the son of long-standing Walford resident Shirley Carter.
In the show, his brother Dean (played by Matt Di Angelo) raped Mick’s wife Linda (played by Kellie Bright), but has so far escaped justice.
Danny teased viewers with what they could expect in the Christmas episode of EastEnders and confirmed reports he would be wearing a wetsuit in the show, after a previous storyline saw him overcome his phobia of water and learn to swim.
“(There is) an EastEnders wedding so it’s (set for disaster) straight away… I’ve got a wetsuit, that says something, so there’s water involved.
“It goes a bit bandy, starts off lovely, then it goes a bit bandy, and then for some reason I whack a wetsuit on. You won’t know I have a wetsuit on though, that’s the thing. It’s dark but it resolves a certain storyline with the old woman (his wife, Linda).”
“There’s something in the water and I get in it to sort the something out in the water… I’m not meant to have a wetsuit on!”
He spoke about Mick’s upcoming bachelor party and revealed that it reflected his 'ultimate stag do'.
Danny Dyer is happy on Albert Square (BBC)
“I’ve got a brilliant stag do. They’ve given me a bit of free rein with that so I have it in The Vic obviously. I’ve given them my ultimate stag do to be honest with you,” he said.
If anyone wants to know the plot, Danny said his grandmother is the woman to ask.
He said: “It’s a right good stag do, someone gets (hit). My nan knows, I’ve told her everything.”
Beyond Walford, the actor confessed he had ambitions to don 007′s suit in the future.
I'm just putting it out there……If Daniel Craig wants to move on… pic.twitter.com/w8FqA0gRps
— Danny Dyer (@MrDDyer) October 26, 2015
“I would love to do Bond, of course I would. There’s a little Facebook campaign – thing is my odds at the betting shop are that Emily Blunt has better odds than me to become the next Bond. Why can’t we have a cockney Bond?!”
Also on Jonathan’s sofa are Priscilla Presley, Elvis Costello and comedian Rob Beckett.
The Jonathan Ross Show will screen on ITV1 at 10.25pm on October 31.
