Rake-in-Progress: Will Antenbring
Will Antenbring is only four years out of drama school, but he has already taken on the mantle of a national hero. He talks to the rake about his breakthrough performance in Dear England.
There is a certain audacity involved in playing Harry Kane. Not just technically — though Will Antenbring is candid about having spent weeks practising penalties he could never quite execute with Kane’s precision — but psychologically. Kane, the England striker and captain portrayed by Antenbring in the BBC’s adaptation of James Graham’s football-themed play Dear England, is not merely famous, he is a figure freighted with national expectation. To step into the role required Antenbring to understand not just how the man moves but how he carries his burden.
Antenbring trained at Italia Conti and the National Youth Theatre, graduating in 2022. His C.V. is short but impressive: a lead role in Chichester Festival Theatre’s Coram Boy, directed by Anna Ledwich, which transferred to the Lowry in Salford, followed by a T.V. debut opposite Lennie James in the BBC’s Mr. Loverman. Dear England, directed by Rupert Goold and Paul Whittington for Left Bank Pictures and BBC One, was his third screen credit. For an actor barely four years out of drama school, it was a considerable ask.
He approached the challenge with the seriousness it demanded. “You look at interviews and articles about the players,” he says, “but you also need to try and understand, as much as you can, who they are as people.” What struck him was the mental cost of elite sport. “The entire world is lampooning you,” he says of a player’s lowest moments. “The mental fortitude they must have to come back and play again is crazy.” A self-described diehard football fan, Antenbring calls Dear England “the stuff of dreams”. On the evidence of his career so far, he seems to be waking up fast.
Fashion Assistant: Elena Garcia
Grooming: Hannah Wynne using Hourglass
