The iconic actor has been gaining heaps of praise for his recent Netflix series Adolescence, where he plays a father whose son (Owen Cooper) is accused of murdering a classmate.
With four episodes each shot in one continuous take many viewers have found Adolescence absolutely gripping, as well as a disturbing introduction to the world of the ‘manosphere’, the terms they use and the worldview they induct men and boys into.
Graham was recently chatting to Capital Radio about the inspiration his dad gave to him, telling hosts Jordan North and Sian Welby that his dad used to get him movie posters for his wall including one of the Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver.
The Adolescence star described the moment he got to tell his dad he’d be working with the director and the movie’s main star Robert De Niro on 2019’s The Irishman.
Stephen Graham was brought to tears to the point that one of his contact lenses came out (Capital Radio)
Welby said ‘it must have been the proudest moment’ as Graham recounted the emotional conversation with his dad.
He said: “I went, ‘Dad, you’ll never guess who I’m going to be working with’, and he’s like ‘Who?’ and I went, ‘Marty’s asked me to do a film again’.
“And he’s like, ‘That’s amazing son!’, and I went ‘Yeah’.”
At this point Graham started welling up with tears and told the studio ‘oh I’ve gone’, but ploughed on to describe how much his parents supported him throughout his life.
“You know, he proper backed me, and me mum. They supported me throughout everything. Do you know what I mean? All the struggles you go through and everything,” the celebrated actor said, before pausing to let his interviewers know ‘me contact lens has fallen out’.
“And he was, yeah, you can imagine it was unbelievable.”
Graham told the hosts his dad ‘was so proud’, while North apologised by saying ‘we didn’t want to make you cry today’.
“All it takes is one person doesn’t it? To help you achieve your goal, or to believe in the dream you have,” he said of his parents.
“It takes that one person and my dad was that person. And my mum.”
Graham and De Niro recently reunited on the sofa of The One Show during an episode last week (13 March) where he got a chance to personally tell his co-star from The Irishman what an inspiration he was.
The actor explained that when he was younger he told his father he wanted to properly get into acting, so his father rented The Godfather, Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter to watch.
He said: “We went home and we watched these three films and we watched them all over the weekend.
“And, you know, it was just, you were the beginning of my whole love of favourite films, really.
“I don’t think I ever told you that. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
This got a big grin from De Niro.
