EastEnders legend Danny Dyer has confirmed that his serial drama days are behind him, ahead of the
release of new comedy series Mr Bigstuff.
Danny, who played Mick Carter on the BBC soap, left the role in 2022. In dramatic Christmas Day
scenes, the character went missing at sea after jumping in to save Linda Carter (Kellie Bright).
Now, he is starring as Lee in new Sky Max comedy series Mr Bigstuff, alongside the show’s writer, Ryan Sampson, who is taking on the role of Glen.
Danny and Ryan recently sat down with Metro.co.uk to tell us all about the show, and how the stars aligned for Danny to take on the role.
‘I wrote Lee for Danny,’ Ryan revealed – but things didn’t go totally to plan at first, as he explained.
‘I poured myself into it, furiously writing it, gave it to a producer and he was like, “Yeah, it’s good and everything, but do you realise that Danny is in EastEnders for the foreseeable future? What have you done? You’ve wasted your time.” And I genuinely had not realised that had happened.
‘I was talking to my friends about it, they commiserated me, we went on a big old night out, and I came home in the morning. And on the very morning of me leaving this night, I drunkenly went past a newsagents and on the front of the Daily Express was “Dyer quits ‘Enders”.
‘I was like, “God wants this to happen, and he’s talking to me through the front of a tabloid.” I was very drunk.’
Danny was quick to tell me that this was the first time he’d heard this story, but joked that it may have been the reason he left EastEnders.
‘I didn’t know this, but I feel that maybe Ryan had some sort of Voodoo doll, because I did just wake up one night and go, “I must leave EastEnders! It’s been nine years now, I’ve done 1100 episodes. There’s something out there calling me…”’
On a more serious note, Danny went on to explain why he really made the decision to leave the soap after 9 years.
To mark the launch of new series Mr Bigstuff, Ryan pulled an hilarious prank on Danny, which saw him commission a gigantic rug that looked just like him in a local Essex pub!
The giant rug, which was made by Jaymond Ahn and Jenny Kim using 36 colours of yarn, took 425 hours to complete and spans a whopping 3m by 6m!
Speaking about the stunt, Ryan quipped: ‘I have created a tv show Mr Bigstuff for Sky and it stars Mr Dyer himself, and also myself, as brothers”.
‘Now I needed to do something truly momentous to commemorate this – something which would immortalise Daniel Dyer, raising him to the status of legend as he so thoroughly deserves… And thus, inspiration struck me. I play a carpet salesman so here he is immortalised in the biggest rug known to Essex. For Danny deserves a deep shag… Pile!’
Danny and Ryan play Lee and Glen respectively, and when Glen’s mundane life is interrupted by Lee’s sudden arrival, there are plenty of twists and turns ahead for both characters.
‘It’s about these two brothers going about being men in the opposite way,’ Ryan told Metro.co.uk. ‘They both think they’re doing it the right way – one of them is being this nice guy, one of them is being this maverick, aggressive kind of lifestyle – and yet they’re both kind of repressed by that. I’m fascinated to see what people think.’
‘I was coming to the end of my run, I had a wonderful time there, but I felt I needed to go out and try some other stuff, if there’s any other stuff out there – nothing was guaranteed – and this script landed on my lap. It really confirmed to me why I’d left.’
Unfortunately for soap fans, Danny went on to admit that his time in serial drama has come to an end, joking that even Coronation Street was off the cards.
‘Ooh no, don’t fancy a stint in Corrie,’ he joked.
