Stephen Graham

Stephen Joseph Graham was born in Kirkby, Lancashire, near Liverpool, in 1973, and had a curious genetic heritage, as his father was half Swedish, half Jamaican. Although he was raised above all by his mother, a social worker, and his stepfather, a mechanic first and then a nurse. Apparently from a very young age he showed acting qualities, as he played Jim Hawkins, the child protagonist of “Treasure Island” at the age of ten in a school function. One of the spectators was the actor Andrew Schofield , who became known in Sid and Nancy , and recommended that the boy’s parents encourage his talent for the scene. And indeed he began acting studies at Liverpool’s Everyman’s Theater as a teenager.

He began to attract attention on television, with his role as Lee Sankey in Coronation Street in 1999, but legend has it that Guy Ritchie cast him almost by chance for Snatch. Pigs and Diamonds (2000), when he accompanied a friend to an audition. Ritchie believed that Graham was also coming to the casting, and after the other’s denial, he insisted on testing him because he thought he had an interesting face. His role as dimwitted Tommy did not go unnoticed, and the actor would become a regular in crime movies and series. Martin Scorsese had him for Gangs of New York (2002), the series Boardwalk Empire (2010-2014) and The Irishman.. To the real characters of Al Capone and Anthony ‘Tony Pro’ Provenzano in the last two, there is also that of Baby Face Nelson in Public Enemies (2009).

But anyway, Graham has known how to compose all kinds of undesirable characters, and his great virtue is that despite the fact that many of his traits produce rejection, there is also humanity and a point of sense of humor, even if it is cruel. It is understood that on the set of Gangs he was nicknamed “Little Joe Pesci “. Of course he called powerfully with his Combo in This Is England (2006), where he mentors a boy in a racist environment of gangs and skin-heads, and which had several television sequels where he resumed his character. He was Barrabás himself in the series La Pasión (2008), and anyway, tough guy, he was still good for soccer titles – Goal! (2005), The Damned United(2009)–, than for warlike feats – Blood Brothers (2001), Greyhound: Enemies Under the Sea (2020)– launching boarding being Scrum in the Pirates of the Caribbean saga , or lending their services to British intelligence in The Mole (2011).

Given his career, it would be said that the actor lives for work, but nevertheless his priority has always been family. He has been married since 2008 to Hannah Walters , also an actress, with whom he has two children, and who precisely plays his wife in one of his best roles, that of the blackmailed jailer whose son is in Condemnation prison ( 2021). He has come to declare that “I work to live, I don’t live to work”, and his and Hannah’s acting qualities have been used with his children to stage stories, and thus strengthen ties. In addition, Graham has refused to go live in Los Angeles, he continues in the United Kingdom, where opportunities frequently rain down on him, such as his intervention in The Rise and Fall (2017), according to the novel by Evelyn Waugh, and his role as an undercover policeman in the fifth season of Line of Duty (2019). Which does not prevent him from getting involved for the first time in a superhero film – Venom: There will be a killing (2021) – and taking his first steps with the musical in the version with songs from Matilda (2022), according to Roald Dahl’s children’s work .