‘Men are so frightened of being too cuddly or affectionate’: Danny Dyer on going from hardman to heart-throb in Rivals

The actor has always been full of surprises – and now thanks to Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster he’s become a romantic lead. As the series returns, he talks about marriage, masculinity and meditationDanny Dyer is dressed in white and carrying a huge bouquet of flowers when I drop in on his Guardian photoshoot. “Hello, baby,” he says to me in a voice so bad-boy East End, so fabulously filthy, that he sounds like a parody of Danny Dyer. We’ve never met before, but you wouldn’t guess.Dyer has been in the limelight for 30 years, but never like this. As he approaches 50, he has become a middle-aged heart-throb. The week we meet, he’s on the front of Rolling Stone UK, and he can’t quite believe it. “I’m on it now, as we speak. And the cover before was Timothée Chalamet! Pretty cool! You know, I’ve had a long career and I couldn’t get on the cover of anything till now.” Continue reading...