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

3. Billy The Limpet - Mean Machine (2001)

As a dedicated, life-long fan of West Ham, Dyer must rightfully be considered an expert of the sport, and yet his no-hope character in the British remake of the American Football classic The Longest Yard (which would later be re-remade unnecessarily by Adam Sandler) which switched the central sport to the real type of football, is an attrociously bad footballer, without a clue. With consummate professional commitment, and no small amount of skill, Dyer reduced the type of ability that would see him chosen as the chairman of Kent League's Greenwich Borough in 2007. As the saying goes, the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing everyone that he didn't exist. The same goes for Dyer: he has built a career out of mediocrity, frequently playing unlikeable characters, in terrible films that a lot of people will never see (either out of choice, or because they simply aren't able to buy them) and yet he obviously has the ability to play completely convincing characters, like the losers he has played in Human Traffic and Mean Machine to name but two. Is it all a ruse? Has Dyer been pulling the wool over all of our eyes with his more dismal film output? It's a pretty pertinent theory, especially with him now joining the auspicious ranks of Eastenders actors, which also includes stellar talents like Dean Gaffney and Barry Off Eastenders.