Does it feel like kind of a magic trick that you can tell an inspirational sports story that’s rooted in defeat, as opposed to a miraculous underdog victory?
JOSEPH: I think James [Graham, playwright and TV series creator] would probably say, “It would’ve been so much easier if we’d gotten the Cup!” But what’s wonderful about this series is it goes deeper. Yes, it’s the “beautiful game.” It’s people we know — different players and managers. But it’s also about subjects we don’t want to tackle — so we tackle them through the lens of the beautiful game. And although it is an underdog story, it examines, more interestingly than just a win, how to lose and the ramifications of great pressures on young minds — elite athletes, in this case. It deals with racism, it deals with national identity, what the flag means — but it’s not about winning. And it deals with leadership and great mentorship.
What impact do you imagine this mental-health-conscious coaching philosophy cultivated by Gareth Southgate and Pippa Grange could have on kids coming up in sports?
JODIE: What is brilliant about this, especially for an English person, is I know this story inside out . . . but I only know it from the perspective of what we didn’t achieve and what didn’t happen. So, I fell into the trap of, “Oh, f***ing hell, we lost!” Whereas, the journey of psychology being equal to the protection of these bodies that are insured for millions of pounds — these feet, these hands . . . these bodies are treated with the utmost respect, but the brain, which is the driving seat of that, is sidelined.
Now, in our 2026 perspective, it’s hard to imagine that mental health isn’t talked about. But it won’t be being implemented everywhere. There are definitely academies across the U.K. that have got youth players who are training every day but are not probably in a situation where they’ve got someone to speak to. And I think what’s brilliant about [the show] is it highlights this wonderful leadership through someone like Gareth Southgate in a time where we are used to . . . did you see Whiplash [the 2014 film about an abusive jazz teacher]? The sense that that is leadership. Whereas Gareth not only did it through kindness, but he did it where there was a longevity to his plan, rather than: “I need to selfishly achieve everything now because it might disappear for me.” He put the groundwork in without even knowing if he was going to get the job. That’s just extraordinary. But then, for that to be married alongside bringing in a psychologist at that time to [an institution] that was so unresponsive to it was fundamental.
What’s great about Dear England is, yes, it shows the bits of it we remember — the games, the wins, the losses — but what I hadn’t realized is how far we came as a team, and actually who was behind that.
JOSEPH: I think also, for young people in the Dear England team, when they finally, in Russia, play [at the 2018 FIFA World Cup], they play and create with a joy. But that joy is born from an authentic connection.
Anyone that’s young that wants to play, it comes from a place of joy, certainly in childhood — and then as you have to take on the pressures and the more serious games and the infrastructure that surrounds it, actually that joy is suddenly taken away. The pressure’s getting in place of the joy — and you need leadership and mentorship that can allow the players to be authentically connected to the thing they love, and authentically protected. There’s a horrible sort of vitriol that comes when teams lose, certainly at a World Cup level. We need young people to be really protected in the best way — not in the old-fashioned way that might have been in Gareth’s time when he was a young player, which was just toxic masculinity being the driving force.
What’s your real-life relationship with football? And has Dear England changed that relationship?
JODIE: Dear England has given me a kind of joy of getting behind the team again, in the sense of all the questions that it asks. Because, you know, we’re living in a time in the U.K. where the St. George’s Cross [England’s national emblem] is hung in a way that doesn’t feel it’s being hung in support of a football team. So, because the show addresses these huge identity questions . . . I couldn’t believe when I went to see the play, by the end I’m singin’ away, “Come on, England!” [the popular stadium chant]. I don’t think I’ve done that for years, and I don’t know if that’s because I just felt that it had been co-opted in a [negative] way that I didn’t want to be a part of.
And what is beautiful about it is that Gareth leads this team and therefore is able to guide us into a way of, like, “How can you not be behind these players? Look at how much they put into it. Look at what they sacrifice. Look at what they deal with” . . . and that actually, aligning with them doesn’t mean you align with the other side of [the fans] that behave in a way when it goes wrong that you would never align yourself with.
And football is absolutely a part of my childhood, my life. It’s a language I feel very lucky that in any environment, if you don’t necessarily have anything to connect on, I can always talk about football. It’s a universal language.
JOSEPH: I love and am passionate about football, and all sports. I love to play and participate myself. I’m like a Jack Russell; you throw a ball, I’ll run after it.
What I love now in watching games is having the understanding through the Dear England series of the new style of coaching, the gentle reformation that Gareth brought in with Pippa to address the team and its psychological needs, to understand the pressures elite athletes at the age of 18-and-up are under, to understand the racism, to understand the politics that gets into the game, to understand what it is to play and be identified with your nation if you’re a second-generation player, and what that flag means, with all the connotations and ghosts that it might have for you . . . As a person that loves football, now that I watch the players, I watch it with all of that in mind and I’m engaged in a whole new, different, deeper level.
We certainly in England have high expectations because we invented the game in Henry VIII’s time when a decapitated head was kicked along the field, to 1966 and bringing it home [the World Cup] . . . I see what [stresses] that team and those individuals are under, and I love them and the game even more because of what Gareth and Pippa and the backroom staff did for England — and I imagine for all teams across the world.
Joseph, you originated this role in the theatre. Were there both challenges and opportunities in adapting for TV?
JOSEPH: Yeah, I always look at it as a huge gift. But that could be a hindrance, because the theatre [version] was very broad, very comical, slight caricature in areas. I always rooted it in a sense of authentic emotion with Gareth. But definitely in the BBC series, when you have a lens which is looking really close up, it’s very different from someone sitting in the stalls or halfway to the back of the theatre who can squint and go, “Yeah, that’s Gareth.”
It’s different when you have a camera right close up on you. I felt nervous about that. I know that we and James calibrated the [story] into much more of a drama and less kind of comical. Definitely, there’s a twinkle in the eye in a lot of places, but I think we’re dealing with big themes here . . . so, I felt a big responsibility because that lens gets much more detailed.
All told, what will audiences take away from this narrative?
JOSEPH: To fully understand the joy of winning, we have to accept and understand the pain of losing.
JODIE: This is as much about the psychology exploration as it is about football . . . That’s what I’m so excited about — is someone thinking that it might not be for them, and then it really, really is.
Dear England, streaming on Crave
MEMORABLE ROLES:
The younger brother of actor Ralph Fiennes, Joseph carved out his own place in screen history with a breakout turn in 1998’s Shakespeare in Love, playing the titular Bard. Other film credits include Elizabeth, Enemy at the Gates and Risen. On TV, he earned an Emmy nomination for The Handmaid’s Tale, playing the despotic Commander Fred Waterford. Most recently, he popped up in Prime Video’s Young Sherlock series, opposite real-life nephew Hero Fiennes Tiffin. Jodie Whittaker, meanwhile, turned heads and broke hearts as grieving small-town mum Beth Latimer on Broadchurch, before taking over the TARDIS for three seasons of Doctor Who — playing the decades-spanning sci-fi franchise’s very first female Doctor.
CURRENT GIG:
Based on James Graham’s Olivier-winning play, this four-part BBC series follows English national football manager Gareth Southgate (Joseph Fiennes, reprising his role from the stage) amidst the highs and lows of several key tourneys from 2018-2024. Specifically, it hones in on the innovative efforts of Southgate and psychologist Pippa Grange (Jodie Whittaker) to change the game when it came to helping players grow from defeat and manage the burden of carrying a nation’s hopes on your back.