Hi Danny, the press release for your new film, Vendetta, calls it "a career best" for you. Is it a "career best" (1)?

It is. I felt like I had a lot to prove, I'd had so many negative reactions to my recent films and people constantly mocking me. I was just like: "Fuck you – I'm an actor. I'm a serious actor."

Do you feel that your personal life overshadowed your acting?

For some people, yeah. It's like, OK, you need to re-evaluate things, maybe you've become more of a personality, a celebrity than being an actor. There are some actors out there that are brilliant at just being the actor and not giving the interview, mainly because they're boring as shit and they've got absolutely nothing to talk about. But if there's one thing I regret about my career it's that I didn't let my acting do the talking (2).

Harold Pinter mentored you as a young actor. What do you remember about him?

I miss him, you know, he was a good influence on me. He was the only person who I feared but loved. He had faith in me, he suffered all my shit because he knew I was a talented actor. He was a fucking tyrant, too, you know, but he could get away with it because he was so enchanting. He was a poet.

Do you think he'd like Vendetta?

I'd love to know what he thought of Vendetta. If he didn't like it he'd tell me straight; there were no airs and graces about him. I learned so much from him that set me up for the rest of my career.

The first time I saw you was when you played a pilled-up clubber in 1999's Human Traffic. How much research did you have to do for that role?

That role was me – I was still living it then. That audition is the only one I ever had where the first question was: "Do you take drugs?" I said: "Yes. I love drugs." They were like: "Perfect."

Do you still take drugs?

Don't be ridiculous. It's not ideal, is it, taking drugs and going home to a newborn child? But listen, I fucking ripped the arse out of it for many, many years, you know. But you have to find a point in your life where you're like: "Time to grow up. Time to let some brain cells regenerate."

There are lots of videos of you DJing on YouTube, looking a bit worse for wear.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of DJing and then I sort of got famous so people were asking me to DJ in the clubs. I did Ibiza, Majorca, Dubai, Bahrain, I've done some major places. But I'm pushing 40 so I was like: "Should you really be in a club? You're not fucking Pete Tong, you know what I mean?"

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Last year you tweeted that it was "freaking my nut" that it was 11 years "since them slags smashed into the twin towers". Can you please define the word "slag"?

Slag means dirty, horrible, nasty – it's just a terminology for not very nice person. So I called them terrorists slags and I had a real backlash. It's the way I speak, but people said I was being disrespectful to the dead. How was I being disrespectful? For me, Twitter is a thought, an idea. It's not me selling a product like most fucking celebrities (3) – that fake shit. I say what I think and I get respected for it or I get assassinated for that.

Speaking of speaking your mind, in 2010 you wrote in your column in Zoo magazine that a man who had been dumped by his girlfriend should cut her face "so no one will want her". At first you said you'd been misquoted in the magazine, then you said you said it as a joke. Which was it?

To be fair, I had a column I never wrote.

You dictated it to a journalist down the phone?

Sometimes. Sometimes I missed it because I was busy. And I trusted a journalist and that actual line is from when I played a pimp in Prime Suspect. It was a ridiculous line. And I said it, in a jokey, ridiculous way …

To the journalist?

You know, when you say something that's so ridiculous. But there is not a misogynistic bone in my body. They obviously wanted to get rid of me, Zoo magazine, so they printed it. Maybe they thought it was funny, or they were sick of paying me two grand a pop for a column I never wrote. I don't know, but I was absolutely devastated. And of course Zoo, the most misogynistic magazine out there, jumps straight on the bandwagon and says: "All our proceeds next month are going to domestic violence." I thought: "You printed that!" The same magazine that talked about how a boyfriend turned his girlfriend into a porn star! So it upsets me, people thinking that I could say that. It's a sad thing but if you write the column, write the column. Yeah?

You're about to start on EastEnders, but you'd previously turned the show down. Why do you feel ready now?

It's the part now for me. They've asked me to come into the Vic and take charge and be an alpha male, but an alpha male who's a family man (4), who loves his children and loves his wife. Not a gangster. If you cross me, then you know about it, but I'm just a lovely, good-hearted, hard-working man and that's what made me think: "Yeah, I want to do it."

Is it true you have an AstroTurf lawn in a figure of eight?

Yeah, it's true. It's just 'cause I'm lazy. As I get older I'll probably get into gardening, but at the moment, I can't be fucked. But the weeds still grow through! Can you believe it? But it's good, though. It's handy, a bit o' astro. Just have to go out and vacuum it occasionally.

Footnotes

(1) It is not a career best. Not a career worst, mind. But not a best either.

(2) Dyer's other release this year was Run For Your Wife. It took £747 in its first weekend and Dyer insinuated that this was the fault of his co-stars, Denise van Outen and Sarah Harding.

(3) One celebrity that Danny does not think much of is Postman Pat, whom he described on TV as "a busy cunt".

(4) Danny has three children, two daughters and a newborn son. His eldest daughter is called Dani Dyer.