In bringing the story of Gareth Southgate‘s tenure as England manager to TV, Dear England also has to give us screen versions of the England squad.
Perhaps the most crucial figure to get right is Harry Kane, the captain for all four of the tournaments Southgate oversaw. Here, he is played by Will Antenbring (Mr Loverman), who spoke exclusively with Radio Times about the experience of bringing Kane to life.
It turns out, for Antenbring, there was a slight issue in playing the longtime Tottenham striker. “I’m a huge Arsenal fan, which isn’t great for Kane,” he said.
“In my auditions, I was like, ‘Oh, he was in the academy, so it works. It will be okay.’ When I got the role, my brother was like, ‘They’re not gonna make you put on a Tottenham shirt?’ ‘Well, they might.’ And they did. I was in a Tottenham shirt in the Tottenham stadium, walking by a Kane mural. So it’s not quite what childhood me would want.
“But hey, we’re having a good season, so I can’t complain.”
Dear England stars Joseph Fiennes, as Southgate, with the actor reprising his role having originated it in James Graham’s stage play on which the four-part BBC series is based.
While Fiennes had years to perfect his take on Southgate, and is helped along by prosthetics in the series, Antenbring says he actually auditioned to play Kane in the stage show too, so he had been thinking about his mannerisms and way of speaking for a long time.
“I remember watching a Kane interview years before doing auditions for things, and I remember just trying to get that down,” Antenbring said. “I had some sessions with a dialect coach, which were very helpful, but a lot of it was just finding the way that he holds his jaw and picking out specific consonants and vowel sounds.
“He has a very interesting way of speaking, it’s a very idiosyncratic way of speaking. He’s got such a deep voice and he’s such a leader, it felt that I had to try and replicate that as much as possible, to try and step into that role.”
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When asked whether he has yet had the chance to meet Kane, Antenbring said: “I haven’t, no. I would love to, I’m such a huge fan of his. And he’s absolutely killing it at the moment, I can’t wait to see him in the World Cup. I think he’s gonna set it alight. I mean, he’s the highest England goalscorer of all time, and he’s going to keep on adding to that.
“I think he’s an incredible person. And everyone I’ve spoken to that has met him, or has worked with him, just says how much of an everyman he is, how wonderful to be around he is. So I would love to meet him at some point, if I am to be so lucky.”
Dear England will begin on BBC One and iPlayer at 9pm on Sunday 24 May 2026.
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