Stephen Graham is no stranger to moving audiences with his emotional performances, but this time, the Adolescence star found himself wiping away tears during an interview on Capital’s breakfast show.
The actor became emotional after being surprised by a video message from Gerry Potter, his teacher at Liverpool’s Everyman Youth Theatre. Potter, who is also known as Gerry Pantomime, directed Graham in his first play at the theatre company, with the young actor taking on the role of a boy who contracted HIV from a one-night stand at a party.
Appearing in a video message on the Capital Breakfast Show on Thursday (1 October), Potter told Graham that he was “over the moon” to have been described as his “inspiration” in the past.
“All those years ago I was Gerry Pantomime, just recalling, and loving recalling that play that we did at the Everyman theatre called Easy and my biggest memory of it, my most cherished memory of it is directing you, and realising I wasn’t just directing a younger person who wanted to act,” he said.
“I was directing an actor, an actual actor, because all I had to do was push you a little bit and you found your way around a script and around the stage like a pro.
“I’m so glad that everything has worked out for you in the way that it has. And Adolescence is a work of genius, kid. Over the moon and it means the world that you cited me as an inspiration . Still can’t quite get over it. But God, I’m good. Take care kid, love you.”
A stunned Graham was then seen wiping tears from his eyes, telling presenters Jordan North, Siân Welby and Chris Stark: “Wow. Oh man, you proper got me there. I wasn’t expecting that.”
The actor, who was promoting his new book, Letters to Our Sons, continued: “You don’t have to be a father to be an inspiration to someone. It’s being presence and being there and Gerry is a beautiful man and a wonderful man.
“I think about Gerry often.I was a kid with a dream and now I’m fortunate and blessed to be able to live that dream. There’s no such thing as ‘I’, it’s a ‘we’ thing and there are a lot of people involved. There’s a lot of people involve behind this book, in my life, who’ve helped me get into this position I’m in today and I’m eternally grateful for them. We only keep what we have by giving it away.”
Kirby-born Graham joined Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre when he was 14 and went on to perform at the Edinburgh Festival before training at the Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, where he met his now-wife Hannah Walters.
He landed his first roles in Guy Ritchie’s Snatch (2000), Steven Spielberg’s Band of Brothers (2001) and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002), but rose to fame as Andrew Gascoigne in This Is England and its various sequels.
He is rumoured to be appearing in the highly-anticipated sequel to Heat alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale.
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