BAFTA Rising Star Awards: 5 Reasons Why Danny Dyer Gets Our Vote

5. Tommy Wright - The Football Factory (2004)

Dyer masterfully convinced as Chelsea hooligan Tommy Wright, wading into the sordid world of heavy alcohol use, drugs and violence, which would have been completely alien to the former Canning Town resident, and presenting himself as a fearless hooligan driven by a thirst for weekend fights with his firm. Given how removed that character image is from the occasionally cowering, and often terrified reality of Dyer, while investigating Britain's Hardest Men, and Britain's Most Mental People, or whatever it's called, Wright is a performance of masterful authenticity. Dyer is literally acting out of his skin, turning the formerly weedy actor who had made waves in his first notable on-screen performance in Human Traffic into a genuinely convincing hard man. That sort of Chameleon-like transformation cannot be under-estimated, and should never be brushed aside as casually as it is when anyone erroneously suggests that Dyer is actually a hooligan, and not a committed actor.