When he was 10 years old, actor Stephen Graham fell off a six-story parking garage. It’s a moment in his life that proved pivotal, he says. “We were playing catch and I fell off the top and ended up in the hospital. I broke both legs and my clavicle and was in traction for three months.”
A lively 10-year-old constrained in traction can prove a real challenge. And challenges have been the anthem of Graham’s life.
The actor, who speaks with a thick Liverpudlian accent, has managed to portray everything from an American GI to Germany’s Heinrich Himmler. But his latest role, as an early-onset dementia patient, may be the most unusual.
In the drama, “Help,” streaming next Monday on Acorn TV, Graham co-stars with Jodie Comer, best known for her role as the villain in “Killing Eve.”
Here Comer plays a caregiver and Graham is one of her charges. The relationship between the two proves critical when COVID hits.
Graham, 48, says preparing for the role proved unique. “It was strange because of COVID I wasn’t allowed to go visit anyone in care,” he says. “I had to have a 10-day isolation period in my hotel, and I had the chance to really concentrate on my character because I was alone.”
He was able to meet with some early onset Alzheimer’s patients on the subject of dementia. “The people that I spoke to said that humanity is off the top because it’s always about the disease. And the problems they go through with people not being able to describe what they want to say, and are they aware (enough) to say what they feel?”
Graham first became interested in acting when he was 12 and performed in a school play. Encouraged by a local actor to continue, Graham says, “I just really loved it. A lot of my friends — from the area I’m from — wanted to be footballers. And I never wanted to be a footballer. I always wanted to be an actor. I played a lot of football when I was a kid, in the park with my friends, and that was kind of what we did in our spare time — going to the youth center as well.
“I used to do plays and I just liked it because you got to be with an eclectic bunch of people, people from different backgrounds, from different classes, different minorities, just an eclectic bunch of people who would all work with one purpose: to create something.”
One or two of his pals teased him because of his choice. “But a couple of my friends who saw me in a play said, ‘Wow, you were really good!’ And also I was about 14 or 15, and at the end of a show, there were a lot of young ladies, and they would be very complimentary. And one or two of my mates would say, ‘Wow! This acting’s all right, isn’t it?’”
It proved to be all right for Graham, who never held down another job. But at one point in his career, he was determined to quit. “I did a film called ‘This is England’ and I thought it was possibly the best thing I’d ever done. And it’s just the way things go, I couldn’t get a job after that. And it was very painful, and thank God for my wife, she told me to keep going. But I wanted to pack it in because in our industry you have that one goal, and it’s beyond your control,” he says.
“Sometimes you walk into an audition and you look down and you know, ‘Oh, I haven’t got this part’ even before you open your mouth. Unfortunately judgments can be made for aesthetics, for class. That’s happened to me. You need to have the skin of a rhino. You need to have that drive and determination that hopefully — given that opportunity or your chance — you’ll take it with both hands and run with it. You need that tolerance with yourself to not be affected by the negative aspects of it.”
That drive has proven a godsend for Graham who has shed his British roots and squeezed into countless personas including three American gangsters: Baby Face Nelson, Anthony Provenzano, and the most memorable, Al Capone.
Graham had played a small role in Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” in 2002. One day his agent called and told him that Scorsese wanted to call him. “I said, ‘Oh, OK.’ He said, ‘Hi, how ya’ doing, kid?’ (Here Graham does a spot-on replica of Scorsese’s voice.) I said, ‘Ehh, OK.’ He said, ‘Remember when we did “Gangs of New York” and I said I’d find something for you?’ I said, ‘Yah, yah.’
“He said, ‘OK, I found it.’ He said, ‘We’ll start in a couple of months. So just read as much as you can and when you get over here we’ll create a character that people have never seen before.’ And I said, ‘And who do you want me to play?’
“He said, ‘Oh, sorry, I want you to play Al Capone in “Boardwalk Empire.”’ And there was this silence for about 10 seconds and finally I said, ‘Uh ... OK.’ After we hung up I turned to my wife and said, ‘I think he wants me to play Al Capone!’ and she said, Oh, my god.’”
Judge Harvey holds court
One of the hits of this midseason is ABC’s “Judge Steve Harvey,” where the comic finally has the last word in his kangaroo court. Harvey says he got the idea for the show 12 years ago. “I came up with this idea ... and I just never told anybody. I've never sat in a pitch room about it. I never met with a network about it. I never discussed it with my team, my production company. Nothing. I just had this idea.
“We were on a Zoom call during COVID with ABC, and it was about eight, I guess, eight execs from ABC and they were very high-level people. And they had got on the phone to pitch a scripted show for me, a sitcom. And they got through talking; and it was a great idea. But I wasn't that enthusiastic about doing a sitcom anymore. And, so, the president of ABC said to me, ‘Well, Steve, what would you like to do if you could do anything?’
“I said, ‘Well, I always wanted to be a judge on TV.’ And the Zoom got kind of quiet because they went, like, ‘A judge?’ After everybody's looking at me, trying to figure out where that came from. And when I told them I wanted it to be funny. I wanted it to be insightful. I wanted it to be not about the verdict but about the story. And the next day they greenlit it.”
Bell rings in new year with thriller
Kristen Bell is getting serious in her new satiric role in Netflix’s thriller, “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” which premieres Friday.
Now the mother of two, Bell says she did a lot of growing up when she was 18. “Six days after I turned 18, my best friend was killed in a car accident and it was devastating,” she says.
“I thought my life had stopped because I was so close to her. And you put so much stock in your best friends when you are in high school because you are pulling away from your parents, you are starting to be an adult, you are relying on your friends for your support and for your acceptance. That was really, really hard, and we had been in theater together growing up. And that made me reassess a lot of things, and stay grateful for every moment,” she says.
Small town stars in sitcom
Fox issues its latest sitcom, “Welcome to Flatch,” another takeoff on a British comedy, on March 17. The Brits called it “This Country,” and it’s about all the weird characters in a small town. One of the executive producers on the American version is Paul Feig. Feig is known for his innovative “Freaks and Geeks,” “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” and “Nurse Jackie.”
“I loved growing up in the town that I grew up in. It was Mount Clemens, Michigan, which is right outside of Detroit, in a suburb,” he says.
“But pretty small. And my father owned an army surplus store, and the plan was always for me to take over the store. Which I just knew I didn't want to do, much to my father's chagrin, because I just knew I would run it into the ground.
“It's not what I wanted to do, basically. And he was always like, ‘Well, you can make the commercials for the store, and THAT will be showbiz.’ And I actually did that when I was a kid. But I just knew I had to get out of there, not because I didn't like it, but because I wanted to do what I'm doing now and try to represent the Midwest.
“You know, that's what I did with ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ and what I have been trying to do with everything that I do about underdogs. I really like to try to show the places and the people that don't normally get shown in movies and TV.”
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