Exclusive – Line of Duty's Owen Teale on "utterly inspirational" new film Dream Horse: "People were standing up cheering"

Teale stars as Brian Vokes, the husband of bar worker Jan, and he said that while he had no relationship with horse racing prior to working on the film he found the experience to be "utterly inspirational".

"I remember the story coming around and thinking, 'well, that's a great entertainment' but it didn't really stick with me," he told RadioTimes.com.

"But then when I read the script, I really considered what the obstacles were not just about the chances of breeding a race horse from scratch, and it actually having the nature and the ability to win races, but also the elitism they were fighting against, and the sheer money.

"It's an industry that's monopolised by very rich people," he continued. "And I saw that and I saw this incredible human story of this woman whose fighting against this faded male chauvinism and pride from the Valleys, and the search for identity.

"And a woman stands up and says, 'I'm going to do something before it's too late.' She has a dream, and she inspires and cajoles and bullies her husband. And he loves and adores her."

The film originally had its premiere at Sundance Film Festival in January 2020 – before coronavirus had begun to ravage the industry – and Teale says he has very happy memories of watching the film with an audience.

"We saw it in Sundance when people were still allowed, the place was packed and people were standing up cheering, shouting 'Come on Dream'" he said. "It makes me go goose-pimply now as I remember it."

Teale added that the role of Brian Vokes was a dream role for him to play – saying that nobody would have allowed him to create a character like Brian if he wasn't a real person.

"There was a documentary which had been at Sundance, so they just sent me a copy of it, and I watched it with my jaw on the ground, looking at this character," he explained.

"He's larger than life, the story is larger than life. So I saw a lot of Brian on the documentary, and then I met him when we were halfway through the filming.

"And I thought 'yeah, I think I've got it right'. I know, this guy, I come from a very similar culture, I kind of know what he's like. His warmth and great physical presence – he's wonderful, like a bear!"

Dream Horse is currently showing in cinemas. Check out the rest of our Movies coverage, or take a look at our TV Guide to find out what else is on.