Metro.co.uk caught up with Damien ahead of the Brassic’s launch to discuss his role, how it explores mental health and of course, the possibility of a second series.
'It’s a show about a group of lads who are the very best of mates,’ Damien began. ‘I play Dylan, who is the brains of the gang.
‘He is probably the most reluctant to get involved because he’s smart enough to see all of the flaws in the plan, but he ends up getting involved and keeps getting dragged into it.
‘He’s at his happiest when he’s right in the middle of it with the lads. He lacks any real ambition or drive to do anything with his intelligence so he’s very happy to hang around with the lads.
‘Dylan is dating Erin (Michelle Keegan) and she has a son from a previous relationship, so Dylan is very much a father figure to Tyler.
Erin is desperate to leave town and make a success of her life. She has these big dreams of a very successful career and she’s desperate to leave town but Dylan wants to hang with the lads.
There’s a real tension there between his relationship with the lads and her.’
The opening episode is set to feature the gang trying to get their hands on a Shetland Pony and taking drastic measures to do so, setting the tone from the get go.
Recalling what made him sign up in the first place, Damien laughed: ‘I remember when I read the scripts when I was meeting Joe and the director to talk about the project, one of the scripts had the guys going down into the sewer to break into a strip club.
‘That was kind of me sold.’
‘So much of the show is about love and about them having the best time of their lives, but intertwined with that is a lot of sadness,’ Damien continued.
This Is England star Joe is bipolar and so is his character Vinny, which opened up a dialogue – not just on-screen – but between the cast members as well.
‘The main character suffers with a mental health disorder and lot of the show is navigating his journey and how his best mates deal with that and helping him.’
‘I didn’t have a defined understanding of bipolar disorder before we started filming, but being around Joe and just talking about it made it easier for everyone else to be honest about their mental health,’ Damien recalled.
‘It got people having conversations on set that you wouldn’t normally have. It made us a very tight bunch.’
Loved watching the first episode, really, really looking forward to watching the entire series en bloc. I did say to Sky that I desperately wanted to see the second episode but don't think this contributed to releasing the whole series.
Joe Gilgun mentioned the Shetland pony in a podcast interview, if I recall correctly some of the stuff in the show is based loosely on things that have happened to him in real life!
