Interview with Stephen Graham for This is England '90

21 September 2015

 

 

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This Is England is back – how did it feel to get back on set with everyone?

It was great. The first little bit of my filming I was pretty much on my own, but it was great to be back. It’s almost ten years since we started, it’s been a long time. It’s like putting on a much loved old pair of shoes. They’re so comfortable you just can’t throw them away. Everyone knows each other, everyone’s got a great relationship with each other from Shane down. The costume department, the make-up department – we’ve all known each other for a very long time, it’s really lovely to be back on set. It’s a family.

 

What has the role of Combo meant to you?

I think it’s sort of the role that changed my life, in many ways. It was the kind of role I’d been waiting to play for years. As an actor you really want to challenge yourself. When someone gives you the chance to create a character like that, it’s just a wonderful gift. I’d done quite a bit of work before then – I’d done Snatch and Gangs of New York and stuff – but given the responsibility of a role like this, and the opportunity to express myself, and just the chance to work with someone like Shane, who had that faith in me, it was amazing. He makes an environment where your only job is to create, to serve the story. There’s a real integrity to working with him. And working with little Tommo as well, that was amazing. He was just so real. He completely believed what was happening. In the scene where I beat up Milky and throw Shaun out the room, he actually thought that I was beating Andrew Shim up. It’s that kind of manipulation of truth that Shane uses. It was such a special thing to be a part of.

 

He’s a deeply complex character – what do you think of him?

As a character and a man I like him. But then I have to like him, or at least find a way to get into him. He’s a very complex character. He sacrifices his freedom for Lol, so she can lead a good life. It’s beyond unrequited love - he knows she’ll never be in love with him, and he was in love with her in the past, but now it’s something even deeper than that. It’s almost on a spiritual level, the love he has for her. He makes this massive sacrifice. He’s spent all this time in prison, but the thing about that is you get to know yourself in prison. If you want to better yourself, a place like prison is a good place for someone like Combo. He’s had a hard life. Combo’s dad abandoned them. When he beat up Milky, it wasn’t a racial thing, it was jealousy – why couldn’t I have had what you had? He had no-one to guide him through his life. But by 1990 he’s a completely different person. He’s completely changed, which is great for me to play as an actor. He’s come on leaps and bounds, he wants to make amends for the mistakes he’s made. He comes out of prison quite delicate, looking for a way to find his place in society, and become a better human being. He becomes alive again. It was very heavy, to be honest with you.

 

Does filming such emotional scenes take it out of you? How do you deal with that?

It does. You have to invest a lot of yourself. There has to be a lot of trust on set. You have to be prepared to open up little bits of yourself. Without sounding too wanky, you have to show bits of your soul. You try and play the truth in any situation, and Shane creates the environment for that. You talk about it, spend a lot of time analysing the scene. If I’m really honest, there’s been many a time when I’ve gone back to my hotel room and phoned Hannah, my wife, and been in tears. And she’ll say “It’s okay, it’s only acting.” But sometimes you have to go to that level, in order to play the truth. After it we play football together, or go on the Playstation, just to try and break it up. You can’t let it eat away at you. I’m very blessed, I’ve got Hannah and two beautiful children to help me with stuff like that.

 

Combo is something of an outsider from the gang – do you ever feel that on set, with everyone else doing their scenes together?

That’s a good question. I do sometimes feel like a bit of an outsider, because obviously they’re working as a group and I’m not involved in that. But I can’t do that. Combo can’t be going to a rave while he’s meant to be in prison. But sometimes I do miss being with everybody else. Again this time I don’t really interact with many people – there’s only a few characters that get to see me. I don’t get to see them much, none of them are ever shooting on the same day as me. But every now and again we’ll cross paths. It’s weird, I feel like a major part of the series, but I also feel like an outsider. It’s a bit of a paradox.

 

You’ve said that after This Is England you couldn’t get any work for eight months because people thought you were a nutter. That’s a pretty good reflection on your acting talents, isn’t it?

[Laughs] I suppose so, yeah, but it really pisses you off as an actor. You’ve just done what may be the performance of a lifetime, and then nobody would touch me. I was baffled about it. I think a lot of people just saw me as that person. I couldn’t get into a room for a while. It was seven or eight months until I got a job. Shane had this reputation for hiring people off the street who have never acted, so I think people thought he’d met this nutty skinhead thrown him in a film and it had just managed to work somehow.

 

You’ve played more than a few psychopaths in your time. Do you find people are intimidated by you in real life as a result of that?

Not in the slightest, no. I think if anything it’s the opposite. Hopefully I’m a friendly, easily-approachable fella, and people tend to pick up on that. It just so happens that I’ve played quite a few psychopaths and really interesting characters like Al Capone and Baby Face Nelson. The next thing I’m doing, I’m about to play Himmler. That’s a heavy process, I’ve done a lot of research on him and watched a lot of documentaries preparing for that.

 

Are you ever tempted to just do a nice romcom or something?

[Laughs] If it came along, of course I would, yeah. I wouldn’t mind that at all. I’m not meant to say this myself, but I think I can be quite funny, so it would be nice, a little romcom or something… [background laughter] That’s Hannah taking the piss. She thinks I should do a film of the life story of Norman Wisdom. But I would love to do a comedy. It’s about finding what’s out there, finding the right scripts, doing stuff that resonates with me.

 

Your career has seen you take part in some huge productions, filming blockbusters in Hawaii where you have a house laid on for you and go to work in a speedboat. How does filming in urban wasteland England compare? Why do you keep coming back to do things like that?

Like I say, it’s about the script, having the opportunity to work with good directors and good writers. We’ve got a lot of talent here, we just have to make sure that we keep providing a platform for that talent. We have a duty to make sure that these young writers and directors have a chance to put their work on display, and have the opportunity to show what they’re capable of. I’m doing a short film in Liverpool in a couple of weeks, before I go off to do Himmler, and it’s a great little script and a really lovely story. But yeah, we’re not long back from filming Pirates of the Caribbean in Australia, where we had a lovely house and it was a lovely experience and I had the family with me. It was fun, but to come back and do something that really resonates is great. I like coming back and doing stuff like this. If it’s a good script, I’ll always jump at the opportunity to be able to do it.

 

This Is England ’90 continues on Channel 4 on Sundays at 9pm.