Shaun Dooley and his son, Jack, look back: ‘He put a lot of effort into being a good dad. He still feels bad about being away on my third birthday’

Born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, in 1974, Shaun Dooley’s acting career began on soap operas such as Coronation Street and EastEnders. Now a leading actor on film and TV, Shaun has mastered the art of complex characters and had roles in Broadchurch, Doctor Who, It’s a Sin, Black Mirror and as Michael Rudkin in Mr Bates vs the Post Office. He is married with three daughters and a son, Jack, 19, who is a camera trainee and a student at Manchester University. Shaun performs in Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California at the Harold Pinter theatre until 15 June.

Shaun

My missus took this picture. We were messing about at home, and Jack, who was just a few months old, was inside my jumper, and we were pretending he was on a plane. I was a stay-at-home dad who wanted to make everything into a game, to take Jack along for the adventure.

While my career at the time was a bit wishy-washy, having Jack gave me a new perspective. It was OK to be out of work because it meant I could be with him. I could be a dad.

Before we had Jack, my wife and I had been respite carers for someone who fostered children, so we’d had the experience of having kids together, but pregnancy was new, and playing music to her belly and all that stuff was magical. The birth wasn’t quite as idyllic. At one point the doctors rushed her in for an emergency C-section and said to me: “We could lose one or both of them.” Luckily, everything was fine.

Prior to this point, my missus had never seen me cry. I come from a stock of men who don’t show their feelings – it was considered a weakness. The second Jack was born, I phoned my dad to tell him the news and this torrent of emotion drained out of me. Unstoppable crying. The same thing happened when I tried to tell the cabby on the journey back home. Becoming a dad has opened this door to emotion that had always been suppressed and repressed. These days, all it takes is one episode of DIY SOS and I’m gone.

Not passing on the same toxic masculinity that I was a victim of has been central to my relationship with Jack. There was a point when he was 13 and we were going to a Barnsley FC game. He went to hold my hand and my immediate instinct was to let go because, well, blokes don’t do that. Then I thought, hang on, this might not happen for much longer. It could be the last time I ever hold his hand. If he senses that I don’t want to, then what kind of message is that?

I’ve also tried to make sure he doesn’t inherit any of my phobias. When I was on set in an old house for the horror film The Awakening, there was a room filled with wasps’ nests that everyone kept telling me not to go into. I wanted to get over my fear, so I sat in there for 40 minutes. Now I’m cool with wasps.

Acting is a precarious industry, and I’ve always said, if the work stops then I will just get another job. There was a period when Jack was at school and I went seven months without work. I thought, “It’s over. Time to move on.” I’m a really good driver, so I figured I could be an instructor. I’m from a working-class background full of grafters and I like to work hard, no matter what the job is. As soon as I started applying for courses, the work suddenly came in and – touch wood – it’s been all right ever since.

I do tend to play quite a lot of dark characters, but I don’t think anybody is inherently evil – they’re a mishmash of the places they’ve been and the things that have been done to them. The darkness might come in handy when I’m warding off any of my kids’ future partners, though. I can just flip immediately into some of the vile characters I’ve played, or just whack on a DVD.

I knew as soon as I read the script for Mr Bates vs the Post Office that it would be huge. When we did a readthrough, the whole room was a mixture of emotion and a lot of anger. I went to Polly Hill, ITV’s drama commissioner, and said: “This is going to explode. The red tops are going to get hold of this and it is going to go stratospheric.” One of the arguments for the government’s cuts to arts funding, which they’ve just done, is that art doesn’t change the world. We’ve just made something that has literally changed government law, and has held people to account who would never be held to account without that piece of art. Culture has the power to galvanise people and I am proud to be part of that. I feel like we did the victims justice, and now, hopefully, they’re getting justice.

Jack’s first job as a camera trainee was on that show. Watching him on set, I got to witness what a respectful, kind human he is. I could step back and go: “You know what? We brought up a decent person in a world that is pretty dark at times.” It reminded me of when he was 14 and we found a few sanitary products in his school bag. We asked why and he said: “Well, because of my female friends, in case anybody gets caught short.” That’s the kind of man we’ve raised. A dad could not be more proud.

Jack

That’s me as a baby in what’s still to this day our living room. I’ve lived there my entire life, and two of my sisters were born there. The photo shows we’ve always had a close relationship and he’s also stayed loyal to his parenting style: having fun and making memories. He put a lot of effort into being a good dad, even if he was busy. I think he still feels bad about being away for my third birthday.

Dad and I are quite similar – apparently we even walk the same. Our mutual passion is film; watching it and making it, too. We’d project Star Wars off a VHS on to the ceiling, and I distinctly remember being four and running around with a Canon camera. Now I think: what on earth were you doing giving a kid a video camera? But I never broke it and mainly made stupid videos with Dad where he’d throw me up and I’d do a stunt roll.

My grandad was a miner who was working down the pits at 15. Me and dad had a very different upbringing and he wanted to teach me about having a work ethic, so he took me on set from a very young age, an experience I hold very dear. While it was cool to meet actors like Kit Harington, those visits mainly taught me that it’s not a glamorous existence. It’s a lot of hanging around, waiting for something to happen.

Obviously it’s exciting when he’s in something massive, too. Months before Saltburn came out, Dad called to say he was in this new Emerald Fennell film that was going to be incredible. I asked who he played. He said: “Barry Keoghan’s dad.” As the film progressed, as Barry lied about his dead dad, I sat there in the cinema thinking: “Cheers, Dad! Way to spoil the twist.”

Aside from that very minor mistake, I can’t remember a single moment where dad wasn’t trying his hardest to be the best possible father. I know a lot of people who didn’t have that in their life, so I am for ever grateful.