“I have been playing sweet teenagers all my acting life,” says Dylan Llewellyn, sitting across from me in a busy London restaurant. “But really, I’ve got to a stage where I’ve started to grow out of it. I’m getting to the point where, at 31 years old, I’d quite like to play some actual adults.”
Picking at a lunchtime plate of prawn toast and pork dumplings, Llewellyn is smiling, only half-serious in his assessment. Certainly, he’s got no complaints about the fact that playing adorable, gentle and occasionally hapless teenagers has helped him carve out an impressive primetime career. There was polite and awkward schoolboy James Maguire in all three seasons of smash-hit Derry Girls, his major breakthrough. More recently, he’s been playing shy and tender 19-year-old Jack, the lead in Channel 4’s much-lauded coming-of-age comedy Big Boys, which returned to our screens in January for season two.
It’s not hard to see why parts like these keep coming. Fresh-faced and softly spoken, his in-person energy channels much of the kind and sweet nature of his most recognisable roles. “And I’ll miss that youthfulness and innocence in characters when they stop,” he assures me, “it’s always such fun. It’s just I’d quite like to play a right horrible git to test myself next.”
The second instalment of Big Boys might at least mark the next stage of Llewellyn’s on-screen adolescence. While season one sees Jack start university and begin to explore his sexuality, the show picks up post-freshers’ as he sets about navigating the perilous world of second year: student housing, changing friendships, anal douching. The difficult themes season one handled deftly with humour and elegance remain central to the storylines – coming out, fluctuating mental health and the long shadow of grief still sit very much at the show’s warm heart.
Created and written by Jack Rooke, the series is semi-autobiographical. Llewellyn and Rooke first met at the Edinburgh fringe, when they were introduced by his Derry Girls co-star Nicola Coughlan. “Jack was trying to get Nicola to play a drug dealer in the pilot,” Llewellyn says, “then my agent called to ask if I wanted to audition.”
Rooke knew Llewelyn was a perfect fit early on. “Dylan has this incredibly kind, empathic quality at his core,” Rooke tells me, “and he’s also a fantastic physical comic. Writing material for him is a joy: I can draft scenes with slapstick silly stuff – like getting an old man’s cock in the eye or passing out from drinking poppers – which still end up with so much heart.”
A pilot was filmed for the BBC, but went nowhere. More than a year later, it was picked up by Channel 4. “When it got commissioned, Jack gave me lots to research about his life,” says Llewellyn. “I listened to the audiobook of his book Cheer the F**k Up, and hearing Jack tell his story in his own voice really helped me understand him.”
Series one was shot right after lockdown lifted, but Llewellyn managed to squeeze in quality time getting to know the real Rooke family. “On set, Jack and I spent a lot of time together. I’d always be asking, ‘Should I do it like this?’ After a difficult scene, the crew would come over and check how I was doing. And I’d be like, ‘More importantly, is Jack OK?’”
And then, of course, there’s that hair. Both on and off screen iterations of Jack have impressive and unruly curly locks. Today, Llewellyn’s seems far tamer than in the show – what’s the secret? “We shot the first season right after lockdown, so I had lockdown hair,” he tells me. “It was super long, all natural. For season two I did grow it out, but nowhere near as long, so yes, I did have to wear extensions this time round.”Llewellyn was raised in Reigate, Surrey. He still lives in the area. “I was nine years old when I moved from my local primary to More House School, specialising in supporting students with autism and dyslexia,” he says. It’s the largest school of its kind in Britain. “Before that, I was struggling a lot because of my dyslexia. I was being left behind; I could barely read and write.”
Pre-diagnosis was a particularly challenging time. “Honestly,” he says, “I just thought I was dumb. Which isn’t the case, I know now. When I got told I was dyslexic, it was really reassuring. No, I’m not stupid.” His new school was on the other side of Surrey, the longer commute worth every second. “The classes were smaller, teachers were patient and took their time. It was transformative. I felt at ease, like I could express myself.”
It was in photography that Llewellyn imagined his future: “Being behind the camera was what I wanted.” There’d been a few bit parts in school plays through his early teens, but acting wasn’t otherwise on his radar. “I fell into it by accident,” he says. “With GCSEs, I chose media, photography and drama. Honestly, it was meant to be a doss subject.”
His drama class entered a competition through the National Theatre. “Ours was a play within a play, and my character was introverted with a stammer, really shy. But when he read lines as a stand-in, he came out of his shell. He got it perfectly; really smashed it.” This spoke to how 16-year-old Llewellyn felt. “Like my character, I was shy back then and had struggles with my confidence. Acting let me put on this mask, just like that character. On stage I did things I never imagined possible.”
His group won the contest, going on to perform at the National Theatre. There he was scouted, then signed by an agent. Still, he enrolled in a photography course at college. “But I was getting auditions – and it was a lot to juggle. My parents reckoned it was worth giving acting a go, so I dropped out of college a few months in.”
Today, Llewellyn knows how dyslexia shapes his approach to acting. Take line-learning – he’s got a method. First, he types out all his lines on an iPad, and memorises each in order. “Once I’ve got all my lines down,” he says, “I record my voice doing all the other parts, leaving gaps for my bit. And then I press play, performing my lines live, so I learn the cues.” He’s confident telling casting directors what he’ll need to bring out his best. “But when I was just starting out at 16, there were definitely struggles. It was tough. There’d be times in audition rooms where I’d be handed a fresh script and be asked to read another scene, or try for another part, with no prep time. I’d try to pull it off, but I’d be panicking: it took everything for me to try to even read the script correctly, never doing well.”
When he did talk about his dyslexia, not everyone was understanding: “People weren’t as sensitive. They didn’t know much about dyslexia, thinking I was just being lazy. Other times I wasn’t confident to even tell them, in case it affected the result.”
Already struggling with anxiety and shyness, these early industry experiences began to mess with his morale. “I wasn’t confident to begin with, so all this was a massive knock. I realised I needed to learn a little more, so I went to drama school.” At 17, Llewellyn auditioned for Rada; he was accepted on a foundation course on his first attempt.
The gigs started coming, including an 18-month stint on Hollyoaks playing sixth-former Martin “Jono” Johnson and a stage breakthrough in the West End production of War Horse. Then auditions began to dry up and he took a job at a cafe making sandwiches.
“It was at least a year of nothingness,” he remembers. “I was this close to chucking it in. But I’d dropped out of college – I didn’t know what else I would do.” Down on his luck, he refused to let himself get excited about the early Derry Girls auditions. “I was at work when I got the call. I pulled off my Marigolds and answered.” He’d been cast. “It was emotional, really. I was about to give up. It really meant the world to me. It saved me.”
He wasn’t alone. Set in Northern Ireland in the early 90s during the Troubles, the show cemented itself as a comedy classic in just 19 episodes and is now a global sensation after finding its way on to Netflix. It’s been a launchpad for the whole cast: his co-stars have gone on to land major roles in the likes of Bridgerton, Barbie and DC’s The Flash. “I love the girls,” Llewellyn says of the gang’s bond, “they’re like my sisters. It was a big part of all of our acting careers to go through it together.”
With two much-loved major shows now under his belt, it’s no surprise Llewellyn regularly gets recognised. For now, at least, he says he wouldn’t change that for the world. “Through Derry Girls and Big Boys my confidence has grown,” he says. “It’s why I love talking to people about the shows, having pictures taken and signing things. You might think it means a lot for the person asking for a selfie, but really, given how I got here, all this? It means the world to me, too.”
• Big Boys series two is available to stream on Channel 4 in the UK and on Prime Video in Australia.
