Beaver Falls: John Dagleish interview

5 July 2011

Most actors have a period of unemployment after they leave drama school. It didn't quite work out that way for you, did it?

Not quite, no. I was very, very lucky. I went for my audition for Lark Rise to Candleford a month or two before I finished drama school, and then found out that I'd got it three weeks before I graduated. It was unreal. I then convinced myself that it wasn't going to happen, and that there had been a terrible mistake, that they were going to phone up and say they'd changed their minds. I didn't believe it until we did our final graduation performance on the Saturday night, and I got on the train later that night and did my first shots for the BBC on Sunday morning.

 

That must have been an extraordinary experience - one night you're in your final degree show, and the next day you're acting alongside Dawn French. What was it like making that transition?

It was unreal. I went to the readthrough in town a couple of weeks beforehand, and I was there first, because obviously I was really keen. And I was sat on my own, just watching as all these amazing people walked in. Julia Sawalha came and sat next to me, and I'd had a crush on her since Press Gang. And Mark Heap, Dawn French, all these amazing people kept walking through the door, and I started feeling like 'I'm definitely in the wrong place here'. Also, I'd been to quite a classical drama school, so we didn't do an awful lot of stuff in front of camera. I think I was in front of a camera twice in my whole three years there. So to go from classical theatre training into that was really intense. I didn't know anything about shooting. I watch that first series back, and I can see that I'm a little bit terrified behind the eyes - a bit of a rabbit in the headlights.

 

The show did incredibly well. Was it an odd experience to suddenly be recognised?

Yeah, it was weird. I went from being a student to people stopping me in the street. I was so lucky though, people really took to the show in such a warm way - it was very gentle, there were no bodies on slabs or car chases or people knifing each other. So the response to it was really lovely. I've never had a nasty comment about it. People have been great, it's a really nice thing for a young actor in his first job to have such a positive response from people.

 

You learned to play the accordion for the role. Do you find there's a huge demand for accordion-playing actors now?

[Laughs] I haven't had to recall my melodeon-playing skills - it's a melodeon, not an accordion, as it's got buttons instead of a piano keyboard. Initially they were just going to dub me, so I just had to look like I was playing it, but I got really into it, and tried to play as much of it as I could live, and the rest of it we recorded it with me playing it and then playing over a playback. By the second series, they'd come to me and say we need a song about this, with this kind of feel, and I'd go off and find the songs myself for the show. My willpower is dreadful with instruments, I've started and stopped so many things, but when it's for a job, and you're going to be playing it on national television, with seven million people watching, you think 'Okay, I've really got to do this.'

 

You were also in an episode of The Bill. Was there a law that all young actors had to star in at least one episode of The Bill early on in their career?

I think there was. I was really glad that I did The Bill, I'm now part of that Bill generation of actors. It was a place for actors to go and cut their teeth. My friend Karl Johnson from Lark Rise to Candleford, I'm sure he said he was in The Bill five times playing five different characters.

 

What happened to your character?

I was a drug-dealing guy who was going out with this girl, and he was accused of trying to shoot her. But it wasn't him.

 

That's a long way from Lark Rise to Candleford.

Yeah, that's true. It was also weird doing something like The Bill, where you know you can't swear, but you're in that world where it seems so natural. So when you're ad-libbing being taken in by the armed police who have come and tasered you, and you're wielding this butcher's knife, it's a bit weird to have to tell them all to 'go away'.

 

Your new show, Beaver Falls, is different again. You play Barry. What's his story?

What they told me, when they were explaining the three main characters to me, was that Flynn always breaks the rules, A-rab always obeys the rules, and Barry isn't aware that there are any rules. He's completely socially inept, but has no idea that he is. He's never had a girlfriend, not because he can't get girls, but because he always goes for the hottest girl in the room, who inevitably tells him to f**k off. His standards are ridiculously high for the kind of guy that he is. He smokes a lot of weed, plays a lot of video games, he's a fairly easy-going laid-back kind of a guy - probably far too laid back for his own good.

 

Was it nice to be filming in contemporary clothes?

Yes. Although my clothes in the show are hideous. But yes, it was nice, especially in that heat. Filming in South Africa in 40-degree heat, I was very glad to be rid of the corduroy and the breeches and the hats and the waistcoats and the gaiters and the big boots.

 

How did you enjoy filming in South Africa?

It was amazing, beautiful. We were filming on a nature reserve, and all the buildings that you see in the programme were all built from scratch. It was all around this beautiful lake, and every now and again you'd see wildebeest and zebra and springboks running around all over the place.

 

Are we likely to see a zebra trotting across in the back of shot on your 'American' camp?

[Laughs] Hopefully not. If you do, then somebody's going to be in a lot of bother. I think that would make it quite difficult for people to suspend their disbelief. One morning, we went out on to the American Football pitch to film a scene with the jocks, it was really early in the morning, and there was a gathering there that looked like a nature documentary. There were zebra, springbok and wildebeest all there at the same time. We did manage to get rid of them, but there was a lot of poo. I don't know if you'll be able to see it on the show, but I think we spent a lot of time avoiding stepping in poo.

 

You were away with a large international cast. Was it fun all getting to know each other?

Yeah, it was great. A lot of the Americans were played by Canadians, and we had British and South African actors, and I think only one actual American in the whole thing. And the South African crew were just ridiculously hard-working and so good, so on it.

 

I had a look at your Twitter account, and it seems that your time in Africa consisted of a lot of hard work, quite a lot of drinking, and bruising your bum jumping into waterfalls.

Yeah, that sounds about right. With the waterfall, we had to shoot a scene where Flynn wants to show us the Beaver Falls, so we go to this amazingly beautiful location, and just as the other lads are talking I've stripped off and jumped in. So I'm the first one in, and it took my breath away. It was this icy cold mountain pool, right up in the mountains. It was crystal clear. It was quite a daunting task, to get your kit off in front of 30 or 40 cast and crew and jump in when no-one else is naked.

 

Particularly when the water's cold!

[Laughs] Yes, exactly. And very clear! Hopefully they will have framed out certain things. We all got mild hypothermia that day. We did it a few times, and were swimming around in this icy cold water, and everything went a bit weird for about an hour. I couldn't quite work out where I was, and the medic was panicking, and trying to give me a cup of hot sweet tea, which I didn't even recognise as a drink and handed straight back to him because I didn't know what to do with it. It was a really odd feeling. But they looked after us, and covered us in loads of blankets and those tin foil things they put round marathon runners. We were fine after an hour. It was quite a daunting day, because that evening we had to go and film on a cliff edge, right on the sheer edge of this drop, and by that stage I was wearing this big, padded astronaut suit.

 

Are you sure you weren't still hallucinating at that point?

Maybe someone slipped something into my drink that day...

 

Did you enjoy working with the kids on the show?

Yeah, they're going to nick it. They were absolutely amazing. They're going to steal every single scene that they're in. They're brilliant. They're stars, and they don't know it, that's what's great about them. They're utterly brilliant, and they've got no idea how brilliant they are. The biggest chance of me corpsing in each scene was if I looked at the kids. Sometimes I just had to look away, if the camera wasn't on me, because I just couldn't keep a straight face.

 

Have you ever been to a summer camp yourself?

A long time ago. I'm from Essex, and we used to go down to Mersea Island, where there was a summer activity camp on. But I was the fat kid at that point, so I didn't get on with it too well. I think my mum was desperately trying to get me to do something a bit more active.

 

If you were to go and work on a summer camp now, what would you teach?

Oh gosh. I don't know, really. I suppose maybe carpentry or something? I was a carpenter before I started acting, so something like that.