I nicked Porsches as a child, reveals Line of Duty star
FOR actor Stephen Graham, playing an undercover police officer gone rogue in BBC1’s Line Of Duty is the latest in a series of bad-boy roles.
But it seems he is no stranger to crime in real life. For Graham has admitted ‘nicking Porsches’ after being kicked out of theatre school. Graham grew up on a tough estate in Kirkby, Merseyside with his mother, who was a paediatric nurse, and his father – a social worker.
He said life in the gritty area led many young people to turn to drugs and crime, and that he himself started stealing cars.
Graham, 45, said: ‘There were no jobs and lots of people turned to crime or heroin.
‘We were into car robbing. We’d nick Porsches to bring back to the estate.’
He also revealed that, as a child, he was often the victim of racist abuse, as his grandfather is from Jamaica. He told The Sun: ‘I’m mixed race. As a kid I was called horrible words that I don’t even want to say, and “little monkey boy”.’
Despite this, Graham said he had ‘a great childhood’.
He continued: ‘Nobody else had acted in the family at all. I always used to do silly little accents and characters in my
‘I was called horrible words’
nana’s house, because I wanted to be her favourite as there were so many grandkids.’ His big break came in 2000 when he landed a part opposite Brad Pitt in the film Snatch – and has since gone on to bag a number of big budget film roles.
Johnny Depp, who he starred with in the fourth and fifth instalments of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, called him ‘one of the finest English actors of his generation’.
The father- of-two seems to have cornered the market on both sides of the Atlantic, playing a host of bad boys and gangsters. Graham played Al Capone in US TV series Boardwalk Empire and a bank robber in Public Enemies – again with Depp. He also appeared alongside Daniel Day Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs Of New York.
He has been married to Hannah Walters, 44, for 11 years. The pair met at drama school and now live in Leicestershire with their two children, Grace, 12, and Alfie, ten.
Despite achieving success both at home and abroad, he said he almost quit acting after starring in This Is England in 2006 as racist ex- prisoner Combo – who beats a black man nearly to death in the film.
Graham said: ‘After This Is England I could not get a job. For about eight months I couldn’t get an audition. I almost packed it all in. I was going to be a youth worker.’
He added: ‘But then I got an audition and I thought, “I’m going to keep going”.’
Graham is currently starring in Line Of Duty as DS John Corbett – an undercover officer posing as a drugland kingpin.