‘I was always able to get away with things’: Daniel Mays on playing bent coppers, acting opposite Michael Douglas, and working-class bias

It’s a huge leap from playing a bent copper in Line of Duty to starring in the musical Guys & Dolls, but if anyone can make a role work, it’s actor Daniel Mays

In 2017, the British character actor Daniel Mays was nominated for a Bafta. His one-episode turn in the police procedural Line of Duty, described as “visceral”, “outstanding” and “stomach-clenchingly tense”, had impressed his peers. The nomination was a turning point in his career, but it was also a bust: he didn’t win and he was so nervous during the award ceremony that he couldn’t enjoy the evening. “You’re sort of anxious that if they say your name you’ve got to get up in front of the great and good of your entire industry and be coherent.” After the ceremony, a party kicked off in someone’s hotel room. “Adeel Akhtar was there,” Mays recalls. “Anna Friel was in the room.” Feeling a vibe, he left to buy cigarettes and got stuck in a goods lift. By the time he re-emerged, everyone had disappeared. “It was not the way I’d wanted the evening to pan out.” He tuts. “I may have had something to drink.”

Mays is talking over lunch at an almost empty members’ club in central London, in the wake of being nominated for another award, the Olivier, following a year-long stint in a very popular production of Guys & Dolls, at the Bridge Theatre. The nomination has him reliving concerns about getting up on stage: What does he say? How long should he talk for? That second question was answered at a lunch put on for nominees. “They said, ‘Listen, if you win, you’ve got 40 seconds – that’s it. And if you go over 40 seconds, we’ll play you off with the band.’” He winces at the thought of his waffling being slowly drowned out by music, then relaxes slightly. “I recognise now that just being nominated – I know this is a thing people say – is an amazing achievement. I’m just going to try to enjoy it.”

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