Jake Dunn Is Fiercely Protective of BBC Trans Drama ‘What It Feels Like for a Girl’

“Whenever I work, I’m like, ‘This will be the last time you do that,’” Jake Dunn laughs. “I just can’t believe it.”

His candid disbelief is no surprise when the Nottingham-born star, fresh out of drama school, went straight into filming a Sally Wainwright show. Dunn might be best known to viewers as Thomas in Renegade Nell, Disney+‘s fantasy adventure penned by the Happy Valley creator, which was canceled after one season last year.

“It does give you an understanding,” Dunn continues, “of when something is fizzing and exciting versus when something maybe doesn’t have that same impact on first read.” The 25-year-old would know better than a lot of people — he’s also worked on Jack Rook’s Big Boys, Nick Hamm’s historical epic William Tell and now turns to the BBC Three’s millennial coming-of-age drama based on the memoir by transgender journalist Paris Lees.

What It Feels Like for a Girl, on BBC iPlayer from June 3, follows Paris as a teen when she was known as Byron (played by Ellis Howard). Byron is still working through sexuality, identity and widespread prejudice in the working class town of Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, but when they enter the world of sex work before adulthood, it also guides them to solace in the form of “The Fallen Divas,” a group of queer, like-minded young people, including Laquarn Lewis’ Lady Die, against the backdrop of the Y2K boom in the early 2000s.

From there, Byron embarks on a journey toward womanhood but gets embroiled in deeply coercive and often uncomfortable relationships along the way. Dunn stars as Liam, an intimidating, criminally inclined boy who also secretly dabbles in sex work. Additional cast members include Laura Haddock, Hannah Walters, Calam Lynch, Hannah Jones, Michael Socha and Alex Thomas-Smith.

The show has received some negative attention in recent weeks following the U.K.’s controversial Supreme Court ruling. In April, judges decided that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex.” Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was among those celebrating the news.

The decision makes even the title of Lees’ adaptation more contentious. “Presenting the idea of an effeminate boy ‘becoming a girl’ as an edgy coming-of-age story is presenting delusion as self-discovery,” said Maya Forstater, a gender-critical activist who set up the British campaign group Sex Matters.

Dunn’s not having any of it. Below, he catches up with The Hollywood Reporter about landing the complex role of Liam, working with some of the best British writers in showbiz, playing the bad guy and why the U.K. Supreme Court ruling has muddied the waters of what should be jubilant time for Paris Lees and the cast of What It Feels Like for a Girl: “It’s a very uncertain time, politically, to be releasing a show that has, at the head of it, trans people.”

I feel like this is so emblematic of a great little BBC show. Original storytelling, fantastic cast. What piqued your interest?

It’s a funny, sort of leading question because the reality of it is that, obviously, you audition for everything you can. Anything that comes through, you try and audition for because you want to work, you want to make rent, all those things. And then, very occasionally, maybe once or twice a year, you end up auditioning for something that you actually also think is really interesting. And it was a weird situation where I’d done a film called William Tell in 2023.

Oh, of course. How was that experience?

Great. We love our swords and shields. (Laughs.) But I shot that for about four and a half months and it finished, and I was knackered. I was like, I just want to take a few months to just not do anything. At the same time, a couple of my friends started auditioning for this show What It Feels Like for a Girl and asked me for help with the Nottingham accent. And I think most of my friends back in Nottingham would tell you that I’m really posh compared to anyone there. (Laughs.) I just never really inherited the accent.

I helped people audition for different parts and read in, but it just never came my way. There was this part called Liam, which I’d heard about. People had been like, “You could be auditioning for this.” And I didn’t want to push it — I was tired from the previous jobs. I thought, it’s not coming my way very easily. But then it did, and I did a couple of auditions and somehow managed to get the part. It was very surprising.

So you feel like you’re very much still in the audition for everything phase of your career?

Yeah, definitely. There’s no two ways about it. I’m not at all known or being sought at all, which is great — I don’t expect that at all. I’ve been very lucky the last two years to get a job every so often. I think that’s healthy. I think I would be nervous if that changed at all because while starting from the same place every time is scary, it’s also very good. If you’re not right for the part, you’re not right for the part and that’s that. It becomes less about anything else. But yeah, I’m always scrambling a little bit.

It goes to show how many talented people in the biz have to scramble. And, of course, at the same time, lots of people would love to be in your position.

Oh yeah, God, I’m also very aware that I’ve been incredibly lucky to work at all in the last couple of years. Since I left drama school, [I’ve worked] on things with really amazing people. I spent four months making William Tell and it was such a fun time. It was four months working with the funniest, best, most talented [people]. When it happens and you get something, it’s the most exciting thing. So I am very, very, very lucky to work at all.

Talk to me about Liam and what it is you think the casting directors saw that they liked in you. Why did people urge you to audition?

I don’t know. Maybe they said it in a Nottingham sense. But when I heard what the part was, I was like, that sounds really interesting but not like me at all. I think I got close to something else that was in a similar vein, [so] I had the skinhead at the time! Sometimes, those cosmetic things help you. But Liam himself, even when I got cast, I couldn’t quite believe it. I didn’t come out of the chemistry reading and go, “I think this is gonna work out for me.” After that, it was about getting a hold of who he was as quickly as possible. I had access to the first three episodes and I basically found everything out about Liam through the script in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever fully had before.

I think it’s so well written and because it’s based on reality, on someone’s life, it has that amazing thing about it [where] it’s quite a jagged shape. It doesn’t sit in narrative conventions as much as a [fictional] drama would because it was someone’s life. Episode three, specifically, I learned a lot from. He was someone that I think was really similar to Byron when he was Byron’s age and had been through the same things that Byron was about to experience. And he has, as a result — in my head — built himself tough to respond to it. People like Liam exist, I know people like that. It was also the first time I really based someone on people I used to know in Nottingham. People like Liam are survivalists. They go from moment to moment and they feel like they’ve got no money, no future and no one listening. When you’re living that way, you see how it becomes about cheating the system. Do you know what I mean?

That’s super interesting that you say Liam has been through what Byron has.

There was a line — it was cut from the final , which is fine — where Byron heard that Liam also used to work [in sex work]. We’re learning how to talk about it. Byron is 15, and we, as an audience, get to decide how we feel about what’s happening when in the eyes of morality or law, what we’re seeing is statutory rape and a form of coercion and grooming and all these things. It felt really useful for me when playing Liam to realize that if Liam had gone through what Byron had, it meant that he couldn’t see what he was doing as coercion because it would mean Liam was coerced as well.

So, for me, it felt like Liam was a mirror. Liam saw Byron in himself and thus became fascinated, obsessed with him and hated him. There were all these muddled, intense feelings that are brimming throughout episodes two and three. It meant you could kind of do anything with it. It felt much more freeing. Also, bear with me if I over-talk a character; I really don’t know whether it makes sense or not…

No, no, it makes perfect sense. Did you speak to Paris about who Liam was in real life?

I did a little bit. It’s so specific and esoteric that I feel quite nervous to almost touch on what I do and don’t know because there was a gift for me in reversing what actors would normally do. I held off on the knowledge. There was a point where I was like, if I knew anything about him or who he was based on, what they looked like, it might take me into a realm of something that is a bit too documentarian. I based Liam’s voice on someone I knew from when I was 15, 16. I based his movements on the same chap and then [Paris and I] created this look together.

However, much of it was based on the true person I wasn’t privy to, in a way that I’m quite grateful for because I don’t want to dredge up anything. You never know where the line is in this because this is about Paris’s life. Paris has written it. But it’s also about keeping the freedom of what we’re exploring. I almost didn’t feel bad for not asking permission for certain things that we improvised during scenes because we knew we were making a drama.

How do you feel about What It Feels Like for a Girl finally being out in the world?

I mean, I don’t know if you saw the U.K. Supreme Court ruling about the definition of a woman. We’re living in a very scary time, and I feel excited in the sense that I’m so proud to be a part of this show. I think that the acting is nuts, and I think Ellis and Hannah and Laquarn are incredible, but it’s a very uncertain time, politically, to release a show that has, at the head of it, trans people.

Jake, am I allowed to ask what you have coming up next?

(Laughs.) I’m heading away in about a week for four months to shoot something, which I’m super excited for. And it’s the first time I’m not playing someone really, really evil. So that is a real big turning point for me.

Do you feel you’ve been typecast in your career so far as the bad guy?

I mean, I’ve really enjoyed it. I just played Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire [at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield]. I finished that about a few weeks ago. We did a month run and a month of rehearsals. I played Liam. I didn’t work for seven months because, you know, auditioning, and then I played Stanley and before that was Stussi in William Tell and before that was Thomas in Renegade Nell. It’s sort of a track record. (Laughs.) They’re all very different and exciting! But you’re like, “Oh, is this my thing?”

It’s all about variation, though, right? You never want to feel like you’re playing the same character twice.

I never have felt that. Like I said, I’m always auditioning. I’m always trying. It is hard. I’m very lucky. But the people, the characters I’ve got to play have been so developed and nuanced and different. And I feel really incredibly lucky to have played Liam. It’s such a specific person and character and not something that I would ever even [think I’d] be considered for.

And you’ve really worked with some of the best British writers in the biz — Sally Wainwright, Jack Rook, now Paris.

One hundred percent. I left drama school and did a Sally Wainwright show and I couldn’t believe it. It does give you an understanding of when something is fizzing and exciting versus when something maybe doesn’t have that same impact on first read. And it’s a funny dichotomy — you’re trying to audition for everything, but then you’ve also had a run of working with the best writers you can think of. I’ve been very happy.

What would your dream role be, or dream filmmaker, writer, or fellow actor to work with?

I’m quite bad with things like that. I’m always very pessimistic and assume that any job is the last one. And I really don’t have career dreams. I don’t know if it’s [that] I don’t have an imagination, but I just can’t believe it whenever I work. So whenever I do work, I’m like, “This will be the last time you do that.” (Laughs.) It’s really good for me. It keeps me aware of everything outside of acting, rather than putting your whole life on this.

You gotta be careful with things like this… OK. Max Porter is a writer who — I mean, I think everyone is phenomenal — but he is phenomenal. I heard along the way that he watched Renegade Nell, so I would love to come across his radar. Andrea Arnold — I saw Bird last year and I thought it was one of the most exciting films I’d seen in a long time.