Danny Dyer was driven out of his home by yobs because he was in EastEnders, so he knows just how his character in Rivals feels.
Former Queen Vic landlord Danny, 47, stars in the Disney+ series as an entrepreneur who is despised by the upper class inhabitants of the fictional Cotswolds town of Rutshire, based on the Jilly Cooper novel.
This echoed the abuse he received after moving into a four-bedroom house in Essex with his wife Jo and family. Danny said: “When I moved in people were milling around saying, ‘What are you doing moving around here?’ questioning me, thinking I was a multi-millionaire, (but) I wasn’t.
“It was a big step up for us, a four-bedroom house. But I’d wake up some days and there’d be eggs thrown at my house which was weird, people resented me for moving in around there. If you’re going to chuck eggs at people’s houses you’d wait for their reaction – they’d throw the eggs and then f*** off home.
“I’d wake up, look at the side of the house, they’d be shell everywhere. What’s the point in that? Then it started to get a bit more naughty and they started chucking vodka bottles and s*** – I don’t know what the f*** I’d done but it was my character in EastEnders they didn’t like. It must have been. We moved to where we live now, which is lovely.”
Danny also told the Off Menu podcast he was targeted by trolls after his links to Henry VIII’s fixer Thomas Cromwell were revealed on Who Do You Think You Are?
Danny was also told he was related to two kings. He said he would love to play Cromwell, even if it meant more abuse. He went on: “I couldn’t give a f*** about King Edward III.
“I must play Thomas Cromwell, I’d be devastated if I don’t – just a kid out of Putney who rose through the ranks, f***** off to Florence, learned loads of languages, became a lawyer, came back, became Henry’s best mate.”