Danny Dyer bared all in the latest episode of Rivals after vowing to show solidarity with his female co-stars who have stripped off in the racy drama. Episode four of the Disney+ show was released on Friday, and showed Danny's character Freddie Jones indulge in a very passionate tryst with love interest Lizzie Vereker, played by Katherine Parkinson.
In the raunchy clip, both Danny and Katherine stripped nude to film a sex scene in a swimming pool, with Danny previously joking he was worried how he would look on screen because it was 'cold' during filming. Speaking to the Radio Times ahead of transmission he joked about baring all, saying: 'I go full frontal in this series, if they keep it in the edit. It's a night shoot, and it was cold, and I'd better not say any more.'
However, he revealed he felt it was important that he too bare all when his female co-stars have famously gone topless on the show. 'Nobody's under pressure to be naked if they don't want to, but if a woman's getting her breasts out, why shouldn't I get it all out?' he said. 'I've got breasts as well, to be fair!'
Fans may notice Danny's physique looked slightly fuller after he put on a stone by gorging on 12 sausages a day during filming. Danny is a method actor and said that in his head, Fred is meant to be 'chubby', so he therefore embarked on an 'awful' diet that left him 'chubby and constipated'.
Speaking on his podcast with daughter Dani, 29, Live And Let Dyers, Danny said: 'I've realised I'm quite method. While I was playing Fred I put on a stone.' When asked if he had been living off KFC and McDonald's, Danny replied: 'He's chubby and he's meant to be. That's the point of Fred. In your brain, that's how he was meant to be. My diet was awful. I was living on my jack in Bristol, living off Deliveroos. And I'd buy a pack of sausages, which is a 12 pack. They go off quick sausages, so I found myself making 12 sausages of a night. Not every night as I'd be f*****g dead. I was cooking them all and I'd make myself a sandwich and you could only really get five in a sandwich. Then I ended up munching the rest of them sausages as the night went on. I was dipping them in ketchup.'
Danny went on to say he didn't have enough olive oil in his diet so he ended up constipated. Based on Dame Jilly Cooper's 1988 novel, Rivals debuted on Disney+ in October 2024 and immediately became a huge hit. The eight-episode first series ended in December 2024 and was soon renewed for a second outing.
Ahead of its release, Rivals series two received rave reviews from critics, who hailed it an 'exquisite bonkbuster' that was able to live up to the acclaimed first season. The official synopsis for Rivals reads: 'In the cutthroat world of 1980s television, where the shoulder pads are big and ambitions even bigger, a long-standing rivalry boils over. In this award-winning drama capturing the joy, excess, and brazen power-grabbing of the affluent elite in 1980s England, ex-Olympian and notorious womaniser Rupert Campbell-Black goes head-to-head with the media mogul Tony Baddingham in a bid to win the Central South West television franchise. Amidst the hedonistic glamour of '80s excess, the personal lives of our Rutshire heroes spiral into chaos when illicit affairs threaten to shatter families, and long-buried secrets ignite with explosive consequences. As rivalries push everyone to the brink, loyalties are tested and hearts are broken in the pursuit of victory. But what is the true cost of war?'
Rivals season two episodes 1-4 are available to stream on Disney+. New episodes are released weekly on Fridays at 8am.
