From Autumn Issue 63
Stephen Graham sits down with Glass Man to trace his journey from struggling actor to one who has been popping up on our screens for more than 20 years in roles that reflect the human condition at it rawest
The feeling you get from being around Stephen Graham is that you’re in the presence of an actor who has not only weathered the storms of his craft but emerged, at last, at a summit of his own making. Compact in stature yet immeasurably vast in spirit, Graham is a performer whose career has been a long-burning marvel fuelled by years of graft.
At 52, he speaks not from the edge of opportunity but from a seat that is fully his: respected, in-demand, and now – most telling – at ease. “If I’m being completely honest with myself and with you, I’d say that only over the last, maybe, five years that imposter syndrome has kind of dissipated from my way of thinking,” he says.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
Since his breakthrough in 2000 in Guy Ritchie’s cult-classic Snatch, he has featured in more than 120 projects. When he picks up my call from his hotel room, he’s rehearsing for the next. He credits in equal parts his working-class mentality and, most potently, a new, quieter acceptance. “I am now more comfortable with myself and who I am,” he tells me earnestly.
“Being this comfortable today is also in the reflection of my work and finding a place where I’m at ease. But don’t get me wrong, I’m riddled with little elements of fear. I acknowledge it. I’m aware of it.” He starts filming tomorrow. His return to comfort, he admits, begins after the third or fourth take. “Then we can play,” he smiles.
To understand him at this moment, more assured than ever before, you must go back to Kirkby, on the northern edge of Liverpool, where Graham was born and raised. Until the age of 10, his mother cared for him alone while training to become a social worker. He grew up surrounded by plenty of cousins, aunts, uncles and his beloved “Nana”. He remembers his childhood, quite simply, as wonderful.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
In a town where spirit threaded itself through the struggle of ordinary families, it was his mother’s lasting values that shaped the young boy’s mind to believe in the extraordinary. “My mum had this philosophy that she raised me with, which is you’re never above anyone and you’re never below anyone, so therefore you treat each other equally,” he explains. “My dreams and aspirations were something that my mum made me believe were possible.”
At primary school, each class would put on performances every Friday during assembly and full-scale plays became a regular term fixture. At eight, he took on the role of Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island. One of the audience members happened to be local-born actor Andrew Schofield, who urged his parents to consider taking the young boy to a youth theatre.
“Because he [Schofield] was on the telly, he showed me that it was obtainable because I’m a believer in, if you see something, then you can achieve it.” At secondary school, he was introduced to the youth programme at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, going on to formally learn drama at Rose Bruford College in London.
The years after graduating were littered with inconsequential roles. “I was going to pack it all in,” he admits. Then came meaty parts in the crime comedy Snatch and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, and most decisively being cast in Shane Meadows’ 2006 coming-of-age film, This Is England. “Even after This Is England, I couldn’t get a job for nine months. Personally, I felt like I’d done a performance and been a part of something that was undeniably wonderful.” He wasn’t wrong. It won a BAFTA, topped critics’ lists and etched the entire cast into the national zeitgeist.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
“I just thought to myself, if I can’t get work after all of that, then what’s the point?” Set in the early ‘80s, the film depicts the malign influence of the far-right on youngsters, epitomised by Graham’s character, Combo, a brutal first-wave skinhead. The role came at a personal cost, weighing heavily on him mentally. This and the lack of work led him close to quitting until his friends and family, not least his wife, actress Hannah Walters, stepped in and persuaded him to continue trying. It was good advice – Scorsese rang him.
“This is how your life can change in these moments. This is where, if you have that belief to stick to it to the best of your ability, the balance of fate changes,” Graham asserts. The offer was to play Al Capone in the HBO series, Boardwalk Empire. It was a transformative part that earned the actor a new level of bankability, leading to parts in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and Oscar-nodded projects like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Irishman.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
During the two decades or so that Graham was forging his career path, the foundations of his Kirby childhood gradually resurfaced. He openly admits to loathing the pyramid hierarchy structure found within the industry. “It can sometimes really piss me off,” he states bluntly. “It doesn’t matter what your role is, whether it’s your first role as runner or you’ve been an executive producer on, say, Star Wars, we’re all here for the greater good of a piece. We’re all here to do our best. Without each piece, the jigsaw wouldn’t be the same.”
In response, Graham and Walters decided to make the change they wanted to see themselves. In 2020, the pair established Matriarch Productions with the aim of championing inclusivity and diversity, and platforming marginalised stories on-screen. “Taking care and looking after everybody,” he tells me, explaining the choice of name. “We are doing it for the greater good, you know what I mean? That’s kind of where the name comes from, to honour those women who raised us and made us who were are. But in the same respect, to carry that forward, that tradition of ‘we’ve got your back here, you don’t need to worry’.”
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
In 2021, their first project, Boiling Point, was released, a tense, one-shot film set in a restaurant kitchen, starring both of the founders and a plethora of home-grown talent. It was met with critical acclaim, receiving four BAFTA nominations, including Best Actor in a Leading Role and Outstanding British Film. At around the same time, an email arrived in their inbox with images of Hezekiah Moscow, a Jamaican bare-knuckle boxer from the 1880s, and brothers Sugar and Treacle Goodson, who ran a boxing gym in Spitalfields.
“Nine times out of 10, these things don’t work out,” Graham remembers thinking. Walters, on the other hand, was more positive and reached out to Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, SAS: Rogue Heroes, Spencer). “I swear to God, three days later, we got an e-mail response from Steven saying he loved the idea, wanted to be a part of it and that he would love to write it,” Graham exclaims, still perplexed. “That’s how A Thousand Blows came about; our first big production”.
The historical drama series is centred around the Forty Elephants, an all-female crime syndicate led by Mary Carr (Erin Doherty) against the backdrop of the rise of boxing in the East End of London at the end of the 19th century. Released earlier this year, and with its second series tapped for an autumn release, the action-packed show has already garnered five-star reviews for its ability to blend culturally political themes with forgotten stories.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
Both these qualities are even more pronounced in Matriarch’s other project, Adolescence. The four-part series on Netflix follows a 13-year-old boy who has been arrested for the murder of a fellow schoolgirl. Within the first month of its release, it reached 124 million views, and by June it had become the streaming platform’s second most-watched English speaking show show to date.
Its impact ricocheted across social media, global newspapers and even the British Parliament, with praise for the way it highlighted the negative influence technology can have on the youth. In four hours, the show held a mirror to its audience, forcing it to confront questions to which there were no easy answers.
Graham, like many of us, had been deeply unsettled by news stories reporting often fatal attacks on girls carried out by British teenagers. “The incidents that happened in our country … where young boys – and they are boys, they’re not men – had taken the lives of young girls and stabbed them to death in really brutal ways is shocking,” he declares, adding that the pre-meditated murder of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey was particularly heartbreaking.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
Perhaps not coincidentally, Plan B (Brad Pitt’s production company) approached him to create a single-shot TV programme in the manner of Boiling Point. Graham turned to Jack Thorne for help on a script and Philip Barantini to act as director, while at the same time asking his two children, Grace, 20, and Alfie, 18, to educate him on the new landscape of social media and the role it played in and out of school.
He shared a story with me from his time at school, where a boy called a girl an “ironing board” as she was flat-chested. After school, her brother punched him and the matter ended there. “An incident would be left at four o’clock. Now it follows you to the extent you may be lying in bed and your phone goes off with messages.” Where does the responsibility lie? In Adolescence, the direction of accountability fluctuates. “We’re all accountable,” Graham acknowledges. “I remember saying to Jack [Thorne] that it takes a village to raise a child. Jack replied that it also takes a village to destroy a child.”
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
The show went on to receive 13 Emmy nominations, winning a total of eight, including his own, Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series and most notably one for Owen Cooper, the 15-year-old newcomer who plays the killer. Both Graham and casting director Shaheen Baig had not wanted an industry-hardened actor. Out of 600 young boys, Cooper brought a disarming spirit to the character. “I just saw this kind of beautiful, innocent confidence in him,” recalls Graham after the pair had a chemistry test in the final audition stages.
Again, the choice reflects Matriarch Productions’ founding ethos – talent, regardless of its origins, deserves a spotlight. While Cooper might have been making his debut, he shared the screen with Ashley Walters, Christine Tremarco and Erin Doherty, actors whom Graham continues to handpick for projects. “I’m not getting any younger. So I like to think I’m on the back nine of the golf course,” he says with a smile. “I’ve played my first nine and I’ve teed off on the tenth, you know what I mean? I’m really enjoying myself. And this next stretch, this next back nine is going to be joyous.”
He adds, “You want to surround yourself with people who you really admire and love and enjoy the company of, people who are exceptionally talented. And within that concept, it’s always about creating opportunities”.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
Most recently, director and screenwriter Scott Cooper reached out to Graham with the simple message – he had written a part in the upcoming Bruce Springsteen biopic with him in mind. It wasn’t the titular role or one that would offer large screen-time but a part that required a certain gravitas and power that he believed only Graham could bring.
“Of course I’ll do it,” he recalls. “You know Constantin Stanislavski said there are no small roles, only small actors.” It’s not the first time he’s brought that quote up in interviews, but here it proved pertinent. Cast as Bruce’s alcoholic father, Douglas, in Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, his performance struck such a cord so deeply that after watching him on set Springsteen called him to say thank you. “He said ‘I never thought I’d have the opportunity to see my father again, but you just made that possible’. It was one of the most beautiful things anyone’s ever said to me in respect of being an actor.”
If we look at Graham, whether a skinhead, a chef at breaking point, or the father of America’s most prolific songwriter, his work continues to return to the human condition in its rawest form. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be on Mars with a laser gun if the right thing comes up,” he says. “But if there are stories that we feel need to be heard, I would like to create opportunities for those to be told, by people who maybe don’t normally have a voice. That’s what I want to do.” For Graham, it’s never been about the size of the role, but the truth that is contained within it. What emerges now is a body of work that inexhaustibly insists on showing you the extraordinary in the ordinary.
by Imogen Clark
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is in cinemas from 24 October 2025 and Adolescence is available to stream on Netflix.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
Stylist: Keeley J Dawson
Grooming: Stefan Bertin using ELEMIS
Barber: Alfie Graham
Photography assistants: Fredrick Horn and Rafal Wojnowski
Talent: Stephen Graham
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