• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Stephen Graham says This Is England nearly ended his acting career

Home> Entertainment> Film

Updated 10:55 24 Oct 2023 GMT+1Published 17:43 21 Oct 2023 GMT+1

Stephen Graham says This Is England nearly ended his acting career

He says he couldn’t get another job for eight months after his appearance

Mia Williams

Mia Williams

Featured Image Credit: Alberto Pezzali/NurPhoto/Getty Images/StudioCanal

Topics: Stephen Graham, TV and Film

Mia Williams
Mia Williams

Mia is a freelance writer for LADBible, and an award-winning trainee journalist at the UK’s No.1 journalism school, News Associates.

X

@mia_francessca

Advert

Advert

Advert

Boiling Point star Stephen Graham has revealed that he couldn’t get another job for eight months after one infamous role.

The 50-year-old actor played a violent fascist in This Is England, and says that he almost ‘lost himself’ in the character throughout filming.

The role has been described as the one that nearly ended his career, due to the nature of his thuggish character

His racist character in the 2006 feature was called ‘Combo’, with Graham talking about the difficulties of playing that role, especially being a mixed-race man.

Advert

Earlier this year he received an OBE for his services to drama.
Instagram/@stephengraham1973

One of the more haunting moments from the film involves Stephen’s character violently beating up a black character.

Speaking about the role, he said: “It was life-changing.

“I lost myself quite a bit within that character.

“After This Is England I could not get a job...for about eight months I couldn’t get an audition.”

Advert

He admitted that he turned to alcohol during his time filming the drama, and would return to his wife at home ‘crying my eyes out’.

He continued: “For me that was where I really learned to dive into a character, I almost packed it all in.

“I was going to be a youth worker.”

Graham is well known for starring in other roles in films such as Snatch and Gangs of New York, as he continued to go into acting despite being put off by the British film.

He also spoke about the racist abuse he received in his childhood for being mixed race, as his grandad was from Jamaica.

Advert

“I lost myself quite a bit within that character."
Instagram/@michaeltimbs

He said: “I’m mixed race.

“As a kid I was called ­horrible words that I don’t even want to say.”

Since then, he has starred in BBC drama The North Water.

The five-part series was set in Hull and the ice floes of the Arctic in the late 1850s, and also stars Colin Farrell and Jack O'Connell.

Advert

His most recent work, however, is a new Netflix drama which has been described as ‘mind-bending’.

The new show, Bodies, was released on 19 October and stars Graham alongside Poldark's Kyle Soller, Peaky Blinders star Tom Mothersdale, Star Wars actor Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, and many more.

The Guardian reviewed the drama and said: “Ambitious, tense, explosive: this genre-blurring whodunnit travels time to visit four detectives investigating the same murder – in different eras.

“It’s exceptionally good value.”

Stephen has had many career highlights, and this year he received an OBE for his services to drama.

Choose your content:

10 hours ago
  • 10 hours ago

    People are only just noticing the ‘questionable’ Don’t Stop Me Now Queen lyrics years later

    To be fair, it is a cracking song

    Entertainment
  • 10 hours ago

    Martin Scorsese stopped working with Warner Bros after they tried to make decision over film with huge IMDb score

    The two camps did not see eye-to-eye over the Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon classic

    Entertainment
  • 10 hours ago

    Dating coach says one text message from a partner could actually be a very worrying sign

    Another one to add to the list, guys

    Entertainment
  • 10 hours ago

    Noel Gallagher spent years moving brother Liam's furniture around to convince him there was a ghost

    The Oasis frontman appears to be rather concerned by the paranormal

    Entertainment
  • Stephen Graham admitted how filming heartbreaking This is England scene had big impact on his real life
  • Stephen Graham was left without work for eight months after 'life-changing' This Is England role
  • Stephen Graham offered to adopt This Is England co-star Thomas Turgoose after family tragedy
  • Stephen Graham praised for 'making his own rules' when naming top five films