Having been successful on the West End stage, the story of Gareth Southgate’s tenure in his position as England manager comes to our screens in BBC drama series Dear England, and to mark the occasion we had the pleasure of speaking to leading stars Joseph Fiennes, and Jodie Whittaker.
Fiennes, who played the role as Southgate on stage also, talks about the unique challenges in bringing the same character to screen, while the duo also speak about the show’s accessibility to audiences, taking a look at a broken society, and a lost generation of young people. They also talk about the importance of mental health in pressurised situations, and what has been done on that front in the world of entertainment. They also talk about changing audience’s perceptions of Southgate as a manager, and how they would go about celebrating goals on screen, over, and over again. Watch our interview in its entirety below.
Joseph Fiennes & Jodie Whittaker
Plot
Dear England follows Gareth Southgate as he takes on the most scrutinised job in British sport. Tasked with rebuilding a fractured national side haunted by decades of heartbreak and penalty shootout failures, Southgate enlists team psychologist Pippa Grange to reshape not only the squad, but the psychology of English football itself. A fictionalised retelling of the defining struggles and triumphs of England’s modern football era.
Dear England premieres on BBC One on May 24th
