Meet Dylan, the kid behind the Palme d’Or

His mother, Sam Yudolph, a former JFS student, agrees: “He’s a bit mad, he fits in well with our family.”

Rocky was the reward for the eight weeks Dylan spent toughing it out in Newcastle on the set of director Ken Loach’s latest film, I, Daniel Blake, which won this year’s Cannes Film Festival’s highest honour, the Palme d’Or.

Dylan plays the son of Katie, a single mother who meets Geordie joiner Daniel Blake in a job centre. The film focuses on Blake’s struggle with the benefits system after being forced out of work over his heart condition.

Dylan explains matter-of-factly that the director named his character after him. “They liked my name and told me they were going to keep it,” he says.

The connections between Dylan’s life and his on-screen character do not end there, however.

In the film, Katie at times skips meals so she can feed her two children. Ms Yudolph’s father, Stanley, died when she was just four and her mother was left to raise her two young daughters alone, taking jobs wherever she could and fighting to keep their home.

Certain scenes in the film were so emotional that Ms Yudolph says she “cried throughout the premiere”. Dylan helps his mum with charity work on local council estates and knows that many children — like his on-screen character — are not as fortunate as him.

“He didn’t have a nice house like me,” Dylan says, putting down the pup. “His was a bit ragged, with things lying across the floor. It was untidy and there was paint peeling off the wall.

“They didn’t have much money so he didn’t get to have expensive food like roast dinners. He had pasta.”

One striking scene shows Katie and her children being removed from a job centre by security staff. Dylan found it difficult: “I felt quite sad, because I have never heard anyone shout that badly and I have never been pushed out of a shop, so I didn’t know what it was like. I think you should give people a chance.”

He hopes the audience will learn from the film, adding: “Help other people who haven’t got anything by giving them something of yours; if you buy something from the shop, you can give it to them.

“People are suffering and I would like the government to get better for people who are suffering.”

Ms Yudolph, a former hairdresser, nods, quietly whispering “that’s good” to her only child. She says: “When I was at school, everyone around me had everything and I didn’t. My mum struggled to bring my sister and me up because she didn’t have any money. So I think it is important for Dylan to know that money isn’t everything.”

Raised in Wembley, “which was a very Jewish area in those days”, she says she started to lose touch with the Jewish community after her father’s heart attack.

Before he died, her father, a solicitor, had been set to “open a very big law firm in the West End. Mum lived in a beautiful house; she had everything, and then she had nothing. Mum was always sad. Everyone came and wanted to take the money.

“She took on lots of jobs; anything that would fit around us.”

The experience led to Ms Yudolph — who worked at market stalls selling tracksuits so she could buy “what I needed” from the age of 11 — losing touch with the community.

Still, she does one day hope to take Dylan to Israel, which she visited as a child with her uncle. She would not comment, however, on Mr Loach’s notorious anti-Israel stance — he has repeatedly called for a cultural boycott.

Noting that the message of the film was an important one, Ms Yudolph says: “There are so many people out there in that situation, and I don’t think people realise. We all have our own lives. We give our kids everything and we don’t realise how many kids are living on estates with struggling mums who have £2 in their pockets.”

Dylan, who was helped into the role by 360 Degree Management, enjoyed his first major acting role — especially the “nice hotel and meeting loads of different people” — he is now glad to be back at school.

“My favourite subject is IT,” he says, looking up from his iPad, noting that he still intends to act after school. Dylan’s favourite film is Shaun the Sheep the Movie, and he says he hopes more directors will give children bigger parts. “They don’t give children a big chance, they think the children will forget their lines.” With that, he scoops up Rocky and continues the potty training.

‘I, Daniel Blake’ will be in cinemas on October 21