Let me entertain you
In this conversation, Daniel Mays reflects on his craft as a character actor, the emotional depth he brings to roles, and the lasting influence of working with Mike Leigh. He talks method, class, photography, and the pressures of modern visibility — all while gearing up for the release of The Thursday Murder Club this August.
Interview Brenda Otero Photography Juan Carlos Verona“Boom! Nailed it”. We are in a pub in Bethnal Green, East London, and Daniel Mays (Epping, Essex, 1978) is working for the camera. And he’s right, he’s totally nailing the photo shoot, in the same way he always does as an actor. He’s quick, instinctive and fun. And he’s been in everything, seemingly everywhere all at once. Mays has appeared on some of the most successful productions on British television (Eastenders, The Line of Duty), theatre (Guys and Dolls) and cinema, where he’s worked with Mike Leigh (All of Nothing and Vera Drake) and even been part of the Star Wars universe (Rogue One). We are about to see him in A Thousand Blows and in Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club, produced by Steven Spielberg and based on the bestsellers by television presenter Richard Osman of the same name.
The Thursday Murder Club, as a Netflix production, gives you a global audience very quickly. But were you aware of how successful the books were?
I hadn't read the books. Around airports, on the plane, everyone was carrying it. My agent phoned me and she said: "You've got to do it. You're perfect for the policeman." I read it and he was like a middle-aged divorced guy, who doesn´t stop eating and drinking Diet Coke. I was like, what do you mean he’s like me? What are you saying? But I took the whole of that weekend reading the script, and selfed taped my audition in Belgium with the help of a young actor called Connor. It’s really rare that you get called after doing a self-taped casting. Most of the time you have to do a self- tape and then you'll send it off and never hear anything back.
In the production you worked alongside great actors like Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Naomi Ackie, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie. How did you prepare your character, DCI Chris Hudson?
What's great about the book and Richard Osmond's writing is that he knows the character inside and out. So when I was reading it, I was like, wow, there's always inner life, there's always backstories. What I latched on to was that the character just kept eating all the time. He was comfort eating because he was depressed. He was divorced. He´s longing for love. He was drinking a bottle of red wine every night with a Chinese takeaway. And I was like, I want to make the character bigger than what I am. So we went for a whole padded suit for the character. People will watch the film and go, oh, Danny's putting on an awful lot of weight. And that would be the reason.
You’ve played your fair share of police officers...
And criminals. They sort of exist in the same space. Policemen need to think like the other side of the law.
When you look at your incredible body of work do you feel it’s time to do things differently?
I haven't got a game plan, really. I've still got the same enthusiasm and passion for doing good parts as I did just when I left drama school, because I think it's such a mysterious job to do.
In which sense?
I don't think I'm ever fully satisfied with my performance. I always think they're only as good as the last job and there's still much more of myself that I can discover. You know what I mean? I think it's a kind of a traditional way of seeing acting, perhaps, that is just like a craft. I'm a character actor first and foremost. So I want to play as many different roles as possible. Because it keeps me entertained just as much as the audience.
"I always think you're only as good as the last job."
Is method acting still important nowadays for actors?
I think it is, still. I mean, you know, it was a breath of fresh air when I went to Rada, to learn the Stanislavski method, because originally before then I was at stage school. So it was like, you know, jazz hands and all the rest of it. But I wanted to get into the internal creation of a character and that's what Rada gave me. I actually went back recently and all of these students were looking at me, asking me for advice. It was a bit surreal, and I was just saying, you've got to hold on to your training that you've been given and just jump into the unknown.
Is there any professional that you encountered in your career who made a difference?
Oh, yeah: Mike Leigh. His process of working is completely unique. More than anyone, he has made me the actor I am today. It was an amazing experience. It opened doors.
How’s working with him?
You learn about a character. You only know what your character knows, They're based on real people that you've met in your life. So they can be made up of two or three people and you morph them together and then you start improvising with the other actors.
You’d come out of character when he tells you to, so it's a completely unique way of doing it. I'm talking about months and months of rehearsal. In other movies you're lucky if you get a week or a couple of days. So what it gives you is complete, spiritual and emotional ownership of the character. They're visceral performances, because they're based on real people and endless hours of improvisation and craft and research, it's a lot to take on.
You have said that the industry needs to make an effort in terms of finding actors from different backgrounds.
You can always try and find more and more working class actors and give them a platform, but in terms of diversity I think that the industry has actually made a huge leap. Not just in front of the camera, but behind, so it feels like we're moving in the right direction, which is really positive.
You used to commute every day from Essex to London to go to stage school
At 13, when I was at Italia Conti, I used to get on the train and go all the way up in my school uniform. It's a big commute to do, I remember I auditioned for the second year of school and I got in, but I didn't go, because I was too scared about leaving my old conventional life. Then I reapplied the following year and decided to do it - before it was just too much for my little head to take. I've lived in London more now than I've done at home, so I consider myself to be more of a Londoner than an Essex boy.
You had some advantage, it may be difficult for some actors to be actually in London.
At that time we got government grants to study drama. And my mum took a second job. She was a bank cashier and then she was working in a box factory as well, on a conveyor belt, just to raise enough funds for me to go to that school. So I had to succeed. I was fully aware of the sacrifice that they made. When I left drama school I didn’t work for six months. But there was certainly no pressure from them.
There has been a culture shift from mass to niche, has this affected your way of working as well?
Invariably, for a lot of productions now they'll send you the trailer and the stills from the set for you to post on social media. And you're like: this is like becoming a whole different job. In terms of what I do for a living, you've got to play the character, but you've also got to sell the product. The media is saturated, isn't it? So it's very difficult to get your show to punch through the ceiling when there's so much competition around. But saying that, when you get something like Adolescence, for example - and the greatest publicity always is word of mouth.
"It was one of the most life-affirming shows I've ever been involved in. And fucking knackering... You’d roll into bed at 1 a.m. and have to get up and do it again."
*(On Guys and Dolls)
How important is photography for an actor?
Really important. When you work with younger actors that haven't got any experience, a lot of the time they don't find their light. If you want a specific moment to land, that just comes through experience and technique, trying to catch the light and incorporate that into the performance. The camera doesn't lie, does it? I always just try to leave myself alone. Do you know what I mean? Trying to just always constantly strip away any edifices and just just be as natural as you can. That also applies to still photography as well, because if it's a still shot or if it's a scene in a movie, they're like a frozen moment in time, no? And when you have a really busy filming schedule, it's like, you're never going to get that opportunity to go back and reshoot the scene. 'cause it just costs too much money. You've got to really be on it and know where you are in the story and make sure you deliver on the day.
I have to say I saw your performance in the musical Guys and Dolls and I had a great time, it was a great night
Did you enjoy it? It was one of the most life affirming shows I've ever been involved in. It was great fun. Yeah. And fucking knackering. I did it for nearly a year. I had a break in the middle, but I did nearly 300 performances. It’s difficult to kind of recreate it night after night, eight times a week. And the thing about that show, because it was such a hit was everyone came to see it, like, old school friends, old relations that I've not seen, people I worked with, like, 20 years ago and I was just like, so not only did you have to do the show, but you have to entertain people in the bar afterwards. Because, you know, they've come all this way and you'd roll into bed like one o'clock in the morning and have to get up and do it again. Just to add insult to injury, I was filming A Thousand Blows, and a Christmas movie. It was ridiculous. I'd never worked so hard in my life.
The interview is edited and condensed for clarity
Team credits
Photography: JC Verona
Styling: Kate Barbour
Grooming: Richard Wynne- Ellis
Photography Assistant: Katya Ilina
Styling Assistant: Lauryn Jean Doherty
Videographer: Alex Connor
Photography and film editor: JC Verona
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