SURVEY DANIEL INGS IMDB, AND YOU'LL FIND A GUY WHO HAS COME TO ENJOY TRANSFORMING, FROM POSH FUCKBOYS LIKE DAN IN SEX EDUCATION, TO THE LOVEABLE LUKE IN LOVESICK AND THE TOTALLY UNHINGED AND FRUSTRATED FREDDY IN THE GENTLEMEN. INGS CONTINUES TO PROVE HIMSELF AN ADEPT CHARACTER ACTOR WHO IS EVER RESOURCEFUL IN BENDING TROPES INTO VARIOUS SHAPES, AN EMBRACE OF BEING ARTISTICALLY CURIOUS. NEXT UP? A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS AS SER LYONEL BARATHEON, A SWAGGERING GIANT OF A MAN, NICKNAMED “THE LAUGHING STORM", WITH A PENCHANT FOR DONNING HELMETS WITH ANTLER HORNS AND NOT GIVING A FUCK. AFTER THAT, ANOTHER CURVE BALL, AS HE JOINS THE JUGGERNAUT SCI-FI FRANCHISE IN STAR WARS: STARFIGHTER. TO THINK WE WERE JUST GETTING USED TO THE STRANGE STUFF, BUT PERHAPS HE HAS ALWAYS HAD THIS IN HIS LOCKER.
Left Shirt, pants and apron Miu Miu, shoes Jimmy Choo
Right Sweater and pants David Koma, shoes Jimmy Choo
Your character, Ser Lyonel Baratheon, is described as a “swaggering giant of a man", with the nickname “the Laughing Storm", so naturally, I can see why you were cast in the role! With his great physical humour and rich emotionality, do you share the same qualities?
When the brief for the character arrived, it said he was Captain Jack Sparrow meets Ernest Hemingway, so I definitely felt arrogant enough to think I was the right person to combine those elements. But it was challenging in the respect that there is very much a distinct tone to this show, which is recognisable if you're a fan of the original Game of Thrones, but it slightly leans into a sense of sweetness between the main characters, Dunk and Egg. So, finding the humour was natural for me, because I enjoy that anyway, but it was challenging to remain as this person who could beat someone to death and laugh while doing it, and have this element of the psychotic and unhinged, while finding the balance of pushing the humour. This character, he's a guy who really takes up space, and he couldn’t give a shit about the niceties or power; he just wants to follow his instincts and do what's most interesting to him.
Top Maison Margiela, vest Marni, pants Paul Smith
Which I imagine, when you put on his big antlered helmet, makes you feel more unhinged and powerful!
Totally. We had this dance sequence at the end of the first episode, which was an opportunity to establish the character as someone who could not give two shits what people thought about him. We spent quite a bit of time working on his dance as he's supposed to be a little bit confused and wrong-footed at this point, and so I wanted the dance to be quite unhinged but also have an elegance and femininity to it, to show his confidence in the essence of who he is and for that to come through in the physicality.
How long did it take to perfect the dance, and did you draw inspiration from anyone in particular?
Well, funnily enough, there is a bit in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where Jack Nicholson does this weird floaty dance, and there is something about the essence of that character that I tried to take inspiration from, as he's one of the greats. From the physical perspective too, it combines this raw sense of masculinity, almost toxic masculinity, a sexuality and violence in him, but also a femininity. We rehearsed the dance in a warehouse near Belfast with a choreographer, and we did so much spinning around that after 10 minutes, I was drenched in sweat and heaving on the floor! It was one of the most physically demanding things I’ve done, which I don’t think will come across that way when you see it, I hope!
Left Full look Fendi
Right Sweater and pants David Koma
Do you enjoy those physical aspects of preparing for a role?
I do, I love all of that, and I've really only started doing physical bits of action in the last few years. I didn't get to do too much of it on this show, but I did some riding, which I love, cantering down the jousting pitch with someone riding side saddle on the horse, and the idea was to barrel through the gates and look super confident, which was shot at 4 am in the morning! So, there were moments like that where I was aware of how complicated and hard the stunt teams work to make things look easy and the actors look incredible.
Do you have a particular anchor when you're preparing for a role, like making a playlist or deep diving into books or YouTube for inspiration?
Yes, but it was difficult with this show. I normally just choose the music the character would listen to and build a playlist, but this character was so much more about the physicality, as he's almost as tall and physically imposing as Dunk, and Peter [Claffey], who plays him, is 6ft 5, so I was never going to be able to compare. Physically, I didn't have the time to bulk up either, so he had to feel big in another way. Putting on the costume did a huge amount, with the antler helmet and the yellow capes, and we had a lot of fun building the look of this character and making him feel big in every way other than height and physique.
Left Full look Prada
Right Full look James Perse
So, did you ever have a longing to insert yourself into the GoT universe and feel the pressure of the hopes and dreams of fans who love the original Dunk and Egg novellas?
I was super excited to be offered the role, and I knew it was a character I would enjoy playing, and I loved meeting Ira [Parker], the showrunner and director. It hit me afterwards, that pressure or responsibility, as people really love these books and characters and that world, and I hadn't actually seen the original Game of Thrones when I was offered the role, so my manager really encouraged me to watch it. But I didn't want to be influenced by it in any way, as I thought it might put some rules or parameters in place, and I didn’t want that. But I have to say, since we shot the show, I have watched all of it, and I think it's fucking great!
Where was your mind when you stepped onto the set, with the culture that surrounds this cult series?
I feel like you have to dispel all of that and just tell the story that’s in front of you, and Ira did such a good job distilling these novellas into script form, and this show is super faithful to the books. You have to just go in and ask yourself: how can I contribute to this character, and how can I make him fun and dangerous and be what he needs to be to tell the tale of Dunk and Egg, but also without keeping too much of that in the back of your mind, as it can be quite limiting. I was glad that I didn't binge-watch the show beforehand, as I think it would've been much more intimidating going on set.
Shirt, pants and scarf MM6, shoes Jimmy Choo
Well, now you're fully immersed in the world of Westeros. If you had to bring it into the real world, which house would you be in?
Look, it's Baratheon through and through, obviously, I'm not going to betray my kind! It's a great lineage as it really does cover so many different allegiances, and there is this through line that the Baratheons all at their core want to be good and honourable, but it can just manifest itself in slightly nutty ways!
Speaking of nutty, we loved your portrayal of the hilarious wild card Freddy in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, and of course, you also played Luke in Lovesick. These were both roles where, in theory, you’re not supposed to find these men lovable, but you do in a weird way. What’s the dream role, the one you really want to disappear into and surprise us, and maybe even yourself?
I have loved playing those kinds of characters, and I suppose I've had to play other types, but I do tend to bend them towards my sense of humour. I guess it would be interesting to have all my instincts stripped away and play someone completely introverted. I would say The Gentlemen was the project where I had the most freedom as an actor, and it could be slightly discombobulating trying to figure out which mode you're in, but there was a lot of my humour in that show, and I am drawn to characters with extremes, where you can play funny but then also violence and rage. I find those shifts really interesting.
Left Full look Fendi
Right Full look Zegna
You like the gangster genre, as you also appeared in The Gold, which was about London’s criminal underworld. I read that as a kid, you loved watching Pacino and De Niro movies and doing cosplay around their movie characters.
Yes, we did. One of my close friends and I always imagined we would be filmmakers – he would direct and be Scorsese, and I would be De Niro. I was really like a lot of teenagers obsessed with the ‘70s and ‘90s crime films, and Pacino and De Niro really were the bridge between those two eras. I would constantly practice in front of a mirror or think, what if I got a chance to be in the movie Heat? They seem to make fewer of those films now, and I think they should make more. I'm excited for Heat 2, though.
Would you like to direct, write and produce? Maybe create the stories you, as an actor, are looking for?
That's something I've started to do more, and I've been working with Ilda Diffley, whom I met on The Woman in Cabin 10, and we've started developing TV projects here in the UK. It's been really interesting discussing the kinds of things we want to see and the people we would love to work with, building things from the ground up. I’m a lover of movies – I used to obsessively watch three or four a day as a teenager, as they were always on in my house. I loved going to a video shop on a Friday night with my dad. I would stand there and browse for ages and look at the blockbusters or old B-movies, and I would just excessively make my way through them all.
Full look Emporio Armani
Good times, we’re showing our age now! Back in the day, going into Blockbuster Video for your pick 'n' mix and finding out that all the copies of the film you wanted to see were already rented out!
100%!! I miss it. Not to sound like, “Oh, the good old days,” but now we have access to these huge libraries of movies and TV, which is great, but for me, the art of browsing has been lost. If I sit and watch something with my wife or friends, my wife takes the piss out of me for taking ages to scan through everything. It really is about chasing the high of a movie; I remember watching Scream when I was 10 years old, and that first opening ten minutes with Drew Barrymore in the house getting the phone call, and then the screen smashes to that iconic movie title. I felt like that with Stand by Me and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, too. I can remember exactly where I was and who I was with. I'm constantly chasing those highs of being a child, experiencing a big movie like that for the first time.
Interview by Kate Lawson
Photography by Dean Ryan McDaid
Fashion by Steven Huang
EIC Michael Marson
Casting by Imagemachine cs
Grooming by Nohelia Reyes using CeraVe and Hair by Sam Mcknight
Stylist’s assistant Francesca Ward
