Biography
Dyer was born in Canning Town, to Antony and Christine Smith (née Meakin). He now lives in Debden, Loughton, Essex with his longtime girlfriend, Joanne Mas, and their daughters Dani and Sunnie.
A lifelong player and fan of football, Dyer is a West Ham United fan, in late December 2007, Dyer became the chairman of Kent League's Greenwich Borough in South East London, appointed by fellow actor Tamer Hassan, president of the Kent League football club, stating: "I just love football and the chance of being involved with a club is like a dream come true." The appointment was actually a publicity stunt to raise the profile for the club.
Dyer was discovered at a local school by an agent who auditioned him for the part of Martin Fletcher in the Granada Television series Prime Suspect 3 (1993), beginning his acting career at 16.
He also appeared on television in episodes of Cadfael (1994), A Touch of Frost (1995), Loved Up (1995), Thief Takers (1996) and Soldier Soldier (1997). In 1995, Dyer also appeared in a television commercial for Coca-Cola.
His many other television roles include appearances in the 2003 Channel 4 drama Second Generation, directed by John Sen; as Malcolm, main character Michelle's stepfather, in Skins; as a football player in the second series of Hotel Babylon on BBC television; and as Matt Costello in what was supposed to be the pilot episode for Breathless, a BBC two-part television series in development from BBC Northern Ireland, renamed first "Blood Rush" and then Kiss of Death, when it premiered on BBC One as a one-part drama on 26 May 2008.
Beginning in 2007, Dyer became the presenter of The Real Football Factories and The Real Football Factories International, a TV documentary series on Bravo, for which he travels, in the former throughout the United Kingdom and in the latter throughout the world, to meet and interview football club fans and hooligans. Danny Dyer's Deadliest Men, "a gritty and hard-hitting documentary series that sees him venturing into the dark depths of the British underworld and hunting down some of the most notorious and feared men in Britain today", began airing on Bravo in the United Kingdom on 20 October 2008.
In April 2009 he turned down a role in EastEnders, claiming that although he thought the role sounded good, he didn't think he could cope with the pressure.
Dyer was quoted in a May 2011 article in NME as wanting to headbutt film critic Mark Kermode. Kermode has been a regular critic of Dyer's output and often "impersonates" him on his BBC Radio 5 Live show with Simon Mayo.
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