Flowers: Interview with Daniel Rigby who plays Donald

7 June 2018

Where do we find Donald at the start of series 2?

Donald has started his own independent plumbing business, and is trying to branch out a little bit on his own and get some independence from the family.

How would you characterise Donald’s relationship with his family?

I would say that Donald feels like the only sane member of the family. It’s a highly dysfunctional relationship, and he gets incredibly exasperated that no-one seems to be able to keep it together.

He’s got a very competitive relationship with Amy. Do you think his life has become more difficult now she’s achieved a modicum of success?

Yeah, I think that he doesn’t like it when Amy is successful, I think it reflects badly on him. Underneath it, there’s a great deal of love, but he does have an incredible rage and violent competitiveness with his sister, definitely.

You mentioned his exasperation with his family’s mental health shortcomings. Do you think he has any sympathy for them?

I think what he really wishes above all else is that people were able to cope, and I think when he’s first having to deal with the reality of his family’s mental health issues, he just feels that they should be able to pull themselves out of whatever trough they might be in. But when the emotional reality of it sinks in, and he sees the stress of his relatives, he really has a great deal of sympathy underneath it all. I think a lot of his approach is to protect himself. He protects himself by being quite hard about it, because it actually terrifies him, and it makes him feel very vulnerable, because he needs looking after as well, and it feels like there’s no-one around doing that.

He’s an odd mixture of vulnerable and obnoxious. Do you like him?

Yeah, yeah I do. I like him a lot. I mean, he is a total d*ck, but the reason he is such an epic k*ob is because underneath it all he just doesn’t know how to handle human interaction, or romance, or how to make friends. In a perverse way that’s quite sweet.

What do you think is at the root of his problems? He’s not mentally ill himself – is he just collateral damage from what’s happened to his family?

I think so. I think it boils down to feeling that he needs to be looked after, he needs love and support from other people in a way that those around him aren’t able to give. He sees that sometimes as their heads being up their arses, but when it hits that they are mental health issues, that’s a different landscape.

It’s a project unlike any other – is that what drew you to Flowers?

Absolutely. I think it’s one of my favourite ever jobs, just because it’s so unique, and the pleasure of doing something so funny and heart-wrenching and that exists entirely in its own dimension is catnip to me.

What’s it like to work with Will, who created, writes, directs and stars in the show?

He’s remarkable. When I was on set I was constantly in awe of how much energy Will had, wearing all the hats all the time. On set, any one of those things at any one time would be an exhausting and very demanding role to play, but he did it all without ever losing his rag or being pissy or falling asleep in a chair or complaining, it was remarkable.

You said of series one that you found scenes with Shun particularly difficult not to corpse in. Was that a problem again this time?

Yes. I would say we had a few incidents on series one where we seriously doubted that we could do the scene, we couldn’t get through it and would have to bin it. There wasn’t that kind of moment on this series, but there were quite a few scenes where we ended up doing extended improvisations, and that was always peppered with slightly losing your sh*t, because everyone is pretty funny.

Yes, it’s also got a phenomenal cast, including Olivia Colman, Julian Barratt and Sophia di Martino. How was it working with them?

It’s brilliant. It’s a big part of why it’s been one of my favourite ever jobs. It’s a set of really lovely people who also happen to be heroes who you admire greatly as well, and are a joy to work with.

All Donald really wants in life is to invent something cool, or to get a girlfriend. Is there any hope of either on the horizon?

Well, you’ll have to wait and see. He continues to struggle with his own mediocrity, but he does strive for great things, and he always will. Bless him.