He played semi-professional football for years before acting took over decent crowds, a couple of seasons in America, people paying to watch. He says the two were never as different as they looked both were always, at heart, about performing. Jamie Kenna’s career since has taken in Coronation Street, Peaky Blinders, The Crown, His Dark Materials, and a tattoo of a house sigil that exists nowhere else in the Game of Thrones universe but on his own arm. This autumn he leads ITV’s brand new procedural Winter as DS Ellis Daldry, alongside Richard Armitage and Annabel Scholey, and stars in Key Street’s The Blame opposite Michelle Keegan and Douglas Booth. He also, without much ceremony, talks more openly about his own mental health than most actors his size and stature ever do.
Background
You played semi-professional football before turning to acting, and your career since has taken in Coronation Street, Peaky Blinders, The Crown and His Dark Materials. What was the moment football gave way to acting, and what did those early years teach you that has stayed with you since?
People often ask this because it seems like a strange transition, but football was a huge passion, and I always wanted to be a footballer though I think the truth is I loved performing, and I saw football as a way of performing. I played semi-professional, in front of decent-sized crowds, people paying to watch, and I played in America for a couple of years too. So the link between the two is actually quite solid once you look at it.
I got paid a little to play, which helped me through drama school and the very early years of my career. Then, in my early-to-mid thirties, my acting career started to take off just as my football career was clearly coming to an end. I got a job for Sir Alan Ayckbourn, a new play of his and a revival that would’ve taken me away for four or five months. I decided that was the universe telling me it was time to focus on what I loved and what would ultimately pay the bills. That’s where football ended and acting took over.
What those years taught me has stayed with me. never underestimate an opponent, never underestimate a job, always do your prep. In football I had to stay fit and active, and it’s the same with acting, you never know if the job’s one minute nothing, the next a five-month shoot. The parallels were great, and it was a really good grounding for me.
You’ve moved between period drama, prestige fantasy, and British soap and procedural work over the course of your career. How does your process change, if at all depending on the world you’re stepping into?
Honestly, it doesn’t change that much. Drama school gives you a toolbox to go out into the world with, but like any tradesperson, you keep adding to it, you realise what you need and what you don’t. It’s all about experience, what you learn from other directors and actors, good and bad, and you start to work out what kind of actor and company member you want to be. Because and this circles back to football what kind of teammate are you? You could be the best actor in the world, but if you’re no good to have around, if you bring the wrong energy, it makes life very difficult.
I love working. I’m like a big kid on set, it’s genuinely my happy place. My process as an actor has stayed fairly consistent I’m just more experienced now, so I know how to peak at the right time. What’s really changed is learning how to be a valuable company member, especially now that I’m higher up the call sheet. Watching someone like Richard Armitage lead as the number one on Winter that’s not easy, and it sets an example for the whole cast and crew. Figuring out how to function and set that example myself is probably the biggest shift as my parts have grown.
House of the Dragon & Winter
Ser Alfred Broome in House of the Dragon is one of your most talked-about roles, stepping into a story with an enormous, devoted global fanbase. What drew you to the part, and what was it like joining a production of that scale?
Incredible. The scale, how theatrical it all is the sets, the costumes. I actually had a tattoo done, because I realised the crest on my gorget wasn’t a generic wardrobe department thing it had been designed specifically for my character’s house sigil. I was the only one in the entire Game of Thrones franchise with that sigil, since my character hadn’t existed before. So I had it tattooed, with my children’s names underneath, and made it my own. The level of detail explains why the fandom is so huge and so devoted.
Being part of that world was amazing. And honestly, I was getting a little tired of being asked why I wasn’t in Game of Thrones as a six-foot-four bearded man, so it felt overdue, in the best way. A real highlight of my career.
This autumn you lead ITV’s new police procedural Winter as DS Ellis Daldry, alongside Richard Armitage and Annabel Scholey. Tell us about Ellis who he is, his dynamic with Ethan Winter, and what pulled you toward this project.
Ellis is a brilliant, stalwart Bristolian copper who’s been doing the job a long time, a detective sergeant, weary, a total technical dinosaur, but someone you’d want by your side. Dependable, straight-talking, reliable. You wouldn’t want him updating your phone, but he’s still there for a reason. he’s a genuinely good old-fashioned detective.
His dynamic with Ethan Winter is that he’s a bit in awe of him, Ethan’s so intellectual, solves things at the drop of a hat, and Daldry puts him on a bit of a pedestal while loving working alongside him. There’s a nice dry, sarcastic banter between them.
What pulled me to the project was that originating a brand-new series has always been on my bucket list and doing that for ITV, bringing our own stamp to it, was something I really wanted. When they offered it to me, I was over the moon.
You’re also part of ITV’s The Blame this autumn, alongside Michelle Keegan and Douglas Booth. What can you share about the project and your role in it?
Michelle Keegan and Douglas Booth were both incredible to work with. I play the father of the girl involved in the central case. I think that’s as much as I can say. It’s hard-hitting, emotional, loosely based on true events, with parallels to stories people will find familiar.
The material was genuinely difficult and challenging for me, and Quay Street Productions were so empathetic, they gave me time, they helped me through it. Michelle had just had a baby and was straight back at work, doing her thing. A real privilege, and I think this is a story worth telling.
Range & Craft
Looking back across your body of work, is there a role that shifted something for you, or one that surprised you in how much it demanded?
Genuinely, I think every role shifts something, because you go in with almost a blank canvas each time. Sometimes that means stepping in as a day player for one scene after leading something else which is harder than it sounds. I liken it to getting on a treadmill that’s already running you can’t be the one who stops it.
Doing Coronation Street was a completely different setup fast, no time to overthink. I was shooting His Dark Materials during a break from Corrie, and going from that fast conveyor-belt pace to spending an entire day on one scene was a real adjustment. Corrie taught me how quickly I could get somewhere emotionally, how fast I could learn a script it showed me what I was capable of. Every job has its own surprises and demands, and that’s what keeps me hungry.
You’ve worked across HBO‘s biggest fantasy franchise and some of Britain’s longest-running television institutions. What does that contrast teach you about the industry, and how has the landscape changed since you started out?
Since I left drama school in the ’90s to now, it’s changed enormously. Every audition used to be in person, you’d print your own photos, budget for reshoots every few months. Now it’s self-tapes, and social media matters in a way it never did, you might be right for a part but lose it to someone with more followers. You have to adapt and roll with it.
I think it’s actually harder for older actors, because we’ve lived through the transition, whereas people leaving drama school now have only known this world. We’ve all become our own lighting techs, editors, directors, DOPs. But it’s also opened doors you can go up for a lead in an HBO series in a way you might not have been able to before. The horizon’s broadened. You have to keep looking at it positively.
Advocacy
You’re a vocal advocate for men’s mental health and partner with the PANDAS Foundation, including speaking on their podcast. What does that advocacy mean to you personally, and what do you hope it changes for other men?
I don’t love the word “ambassador”, it makes me sound like I’m sat on a throne. What I want to be is a voice, a sounding board, particularly for men’s mental health. As a six-foot-four, burly, working-class kid from a council estate, I feel I represent a real demographic. I’ve had my own struggles with anxiety and depression, been to very dark places, and it’s not something that’s just “over”. I still go back there sometimes. But now I understand what it is.
If I’d had someone in the public eye I related to, speaking about their own struggles, it would have helped enormously. I didn’t have that, so I kept it to myself for a long time. When I finally started speaking about it, that was my road forward, not recovery exactly, but learning to cope, and understanding the problem shrinks when you share it.
That’s why partnering with foundations like PANDAS and Mind matters to me. I don’t want to just lend my name to something and have it mean nothing. I want to encourage people, especially men, to speak out, to put a hand up and say “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” because that was me. We’re in a better place than we were, but nowhere near where we need to be, the suicide rate is still far too high, and I’ve lost people, and I know others who have too. We have to support mental health services properly. If anyone reading this wants to talk, or needs pointing toward help, I’m here. I feel very passionate about it.
“What I want to be is a voice, and a sounding board, particularly for men’s mental health.”
— Jamie Kenna
What’s Next
Between football and acting, discipline and physicality have clearly shaped your life. What does that carry into your work now, and what fills your time when you’re not on set?
Football and acting have always shaped my life through discipline and physicality. It gets harder as you get older, but now more than ever I need to look after my body, eat right, take the right supplements, keep my B12 up. Off set, I’ve got two amazing kids and a family, so there’s never a dull moment. I long for the days I was bored! I only go to work for a rest, honestly.
I’ve just finished A View from the Bridge, playing Eddie Carbone, a genuine bucket-list role. I’m about to start two films. a First World War film based on a true story, and a short film I made a couple of years ago that’s now been funded as a feature, starting at the end of August. I’m booked through to early October, and then we’ll see.
If people love Winter, who knows maybe I’ll be back among the dragons, or strolling the cobbles again. As for dream collaborators, Daniel Day-Lewis is my acting hero, I’d love to work with Christopher Nolan, and Mark Rylance on stage. The list goes on. Mainly, I just want to keep working, I love this.
“Your job is not to get the job. Your job is to present what you can bring.”
Connect with Jamie Kenna
Jamie Kenna is a British actor whose career spans Coronation Street, Peaky Blinders, The Crown, His Dark Materials and Ser Alfred Broome in House of the Dragon. He leads ITV’s Winter as DS Ellis Daldry this autumn, alongside Richard Armitage and Annabel Scholey, and also stars in ITV’s The Blame. He is a vocal advocate for men’s mental health, partnered with the PANDAS Foundation.