The Swansea-born Game of Thrones star, who is in the new season of BBC drama Death Valley, said it’s a technique that has served him well
When it comes to watching productions set and filmed in Wales they tend to have an extensive Welsh cast and Death Valley is no different. You may be sat wondering why you recognise certain faces and then think: “Ah, it’s probably Casualty.”
One actor who features in the new season of the BBC comedy crime drama is Owen Teale. The actor is best known for appearing in Game of Thrones, Line of Duty, and Sky’s Stella which was written by and stars Ruth Jones.
The actor from Swansea features in series as the hippy estranged father of DC Janie Mallowan, played by Gwyneth Keyworth. His character Michael (or his nickname Mwcdi) is reunited with his daughter when she is investigating a case at the environmental commune where he lives.
This isn’t the first time the pair have played father and daughter on-screen as they starred alongside each other in a short film in 2022 titled Blue. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter
Teale, chatting in a small rural arts space in St Hilary while the cast and crew were in the middle of filming the fourth episode of the second series where his character appears for the first time, reflected on the realisation he was now at a stage, aged 65, where he was playing father figures.
“t’s still a surprise, you know, this ageing thing where you go: ‘Oh yeah, of course, I’m everyone’s dad now.’ Grandad’s coming.
“And of course inside you still feel – well I do anyway – very, very similar to how I felt 20 years ago.
“All I see is I have to take responsibility for these people and be the father figure. I’m very, very happy. I’m really happy to be here and not be just retired off.”
Keyworth was also looking forward to once again starring alongside Teale and speaking about reuniting she said: “He’s played my dad before in a short film. So it’s nice because we’ve sort of got a shorthand established in that I know him and I admire his work – and also he’s just a lovely human being so that’s been really nice.
“He’s great casting. He is really great and he brings such a lovely energy to the show and real comic timing but also real warmth, which is what this show’s all about.”
After taking on heavy roles such as Ser Alliser Thorne in Game of Thrones Teale is thrilled to be delving back in to comedy. He said: “Most of my work recently has been quite heavy. I can’t wait to get my teeth into it.
“It was much more – once we’d had a few chats on the phone and the thought of working with [Timothy Spall] and I knew that I’d done this short film which is a beautiful film with Gwyneth – the elements were there. And then a character that if you get it wrong he becomes a completely ridiculous character and so trying to find the truth of that.
“So that was really lovely, then, to go: ‘Oh actually this is a challenge I want to be brave and jump in’.”
He compared his role in Death Valley to his role of David ‘Dai’ Kosh in Stella, which he appeared in 20 episodes from 2012 to 2013. Teale said: “I mean, the closest I came to this is a thing I did years ago with Ruth Jones which was called Stella. That was great fun as well. It’s sort of more towards that.
“But the thing was I started doing Stella and I did the first two seasons and then I started doing Game of Thrones and it just couldn’t be more different. Then, due to the nature of Game of Thrones, they were sort of like all-consuming and I couldn’t do both. They weren’t going to allow me to dash off so I didn’t do any more of Stella because of that.
“But although it is like Stella this is breaking other ground as well. Getting to know what it is for them, for them all, the producers, and that is a wonderful, wonderful journey.
“For it to be supported by the Beeb and then for them to get success from it so that they can come back and revisit it – it’s a very exciting thing. I don’t think it’s that easy a time at the moment to get things financed.”
He explained he hadn’t watched the first season of Death Valley as he didn’t want any preconceptions of the characters or his own character, which is something he also did when working on Game of Thrones.
Teale said: “Still to this day every day of my life people will want to talk about the story and then they’ll go off onto other parts of the story and I say: ‘I never used to watch it because it wasn’t helpful,’ especially as it became such a big world thing to be playing what’s going on in King’s Landing.”
He tried to understand the character of Michael and how he enjoys living on the environmental commune, which was filmed in a rural arts centre in St Hilary in the Vale of Glamorgan. He said: “When I’m in this place that we’re in I flip where I go: ‘Do you know there’s part of this I get?’
“When things have been super-successful you earn an awful lot of money in this game and then it drops away and when I look back I don’t think I was ever any happier when I was earning this much or that much and you start to think it is true, that part of it is true. So what if you just let it all go and I can get to live a simpler life?
“It’s not my job to judge the character, that’s for you, because you know I have to be him and understand and why he’s in a damp tent.”
The actor described how he loves returning to Wales to film as when he started his career in acting he felt like he had to leave and go to England for jobs.
The Swansea-born star said: “I left, if I’m honest, I left for my career’s sake you know. I went to England to become an actor and to join The Royal Shakespeare and things like that.
“I don’t think you would leave if you were brought up here now. There’s so much. I’ve come back and done really earthy things like Stella, or this, but I’ve also come here and I did a series for Bad Wolf called A Discovery of Witches and its locations were here, the studios are here, there’s massive studios, and then the two locations we worked were Oxford and Venice.
“When we went to Oxford they shut down. You can’t imagine how much that cost to shut down huge bits of it in the Bodleian Library. It’s massive. And you think [Death Valley] is based in Cardiff. This company, this is fantastic.
“Then they go to Venice and shooting, you know, on the Grand Canal, and they took over the island, I can’t remember the name of it now, and you just go: ‘Wow, it’s all right to be Welsh’. I don’t think that was always the way it was. We were sort of thought of as a bit of poor relation. So that’s really lovely for me.”
He praised his Stella co-star Ruth Jones for the work she has done for Welsh media through programmes like Stella and Gavin & Stacey.
Teale said: “To me what Ruth did was huge because you think of all the ones from all around the UK that always got that slot, the Heartbeats and Monarch of the Glen in Scotland, never the ones from Wales would get that sort of exposure.
“I think Gavin & Stacey, I think Ruth and James Corden, obviously, but what Ruth did for Wales was, I will always remind people that it’s wonderful because she really helped make it interesting to the whole country in popular television.
“She sends me texts and she gets quite nostalgic as we do and she says: ‘All right? Do you remember this?’ and she’s sent me a little screen. She’s obviously been re-watching some of the old episodes you know and I was very touched by that.”
Death Valley continues on BBC One at 9.15pm on Sunday, June 7.
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