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Lancashire-born actor Stephen Graham cut his teeth at Liverpool’s star-making Everyman Theatre, finding widespread fame with a startling performance in Shane Meadows’s 2006 film This Is England and its television sequels. He has gone on to star on the big and small screen on both sides of the Atlantic, often taking on real-life characters such as Billy Bremner, Heinrich Himmler and Al Capone. He recently appeared in 麻豆官网首页入口 TV smash hit Line of Duty, and has a major role in Martin Scorsese’s latest movie, The Irishman.

1. He often finds his way into a role via his feet (and shoes)

Like many actors, he has his own individual method of getting into character. “I just like to try and change the physicality straight away try and get away from my own body,” he explains. “It’s the shoes of the character and the walk of the character that I try and find.” Once he has found the right shoes and walk he has found how to play the role. “Al Capone had some belters, and they were all handmade,” he says of his character in TV drama Boardwalk Empire's footwear.

2. Even as an established Hollywood actor, he was nervous meeting Robert de Niro

When he first expressed a serious interest in acting as a child, Robert De Niro’s performance in Taxi Driver was one of the essential performances his dad insisted he see. The actor has remained something of a hero and he’s now acting opposite him in The Irishman. As De Niro is also an executive producer on the film, the two had to meet before Graham was confirmed in his role. “I was really nervous,” says Graham, but things went well: “He walked in with his hat on, in his shirt and his shorts with a paper under his arm and I was just like, ‘Wow: he’s just dead normal.’ We chatted; he was lovely.” Director Martin Scorsese, who was also in attendance, pointed out that they had both played Al Capone (De Niro took the role in Brian De Palma’s 1987 hit The Untouchables). Graham couldn’t believe it when De Niro turned to him and said: “Yeah, you were great.”

3. He chooses Save the Children by Marvin Gaye to remind him of his mother

Graham’s close relationship with his mother goes back to his early years when she was a young single mum and he was an only child. “There was just me and me ma for the first 10, 11 years of my life. She had me when she was 20, you know?” She provided him with a strong role model for working hard and achieving: “She strived and she went to college and got an education; she became a nursery nurse and she worked it out and she became a social worker.”

4. It was his stepfather – whom he affectionately calls "Pops" – who helped him understand his own heritage

Graham is mixed race, with Jamaican heritage on his father’s side, and this wasn’t always easy for him as a child. “There were times there, growing up, I was slightly unsure where I fitted in," he says. Although he is also close to his biological father, his “Pops” – who is also mixed race and got together with his mum after those early years – was the one who taught him about his cultural heritage: “He taught me the history and the cultural aspect of where I came from, which was beautiful.”

5. He has a fairy cake tattooed on his arm in tribute to his nana

“I used to be at me nana’s all the time, because my school was round the corner,” he says, explaining that she had a food van from which she sold snacks. “She was a great cook, me nana, fantastic cook, she used to make a boss pan of scouse." Her link to food led to the unusual tattoo he has to remember her by: “She used to make these little fairy cakes,” he says, hence his fairy cake tattoo.

6. He was part of a breakdancing crew in his younger days

Graham picks Young MC’s 1988 hip-hop track Know How and reminisces about his unexpected dance history. “I was part of a breakdancing crew called The Bronx Breakers,” he reveals, telling Lauren that his best moves were "the windmill" and "the caterpillar". However, he does admit that this pastime is now well in the past for him: “I can’t do that, I’m 46 now!”

7. Having a TV star living locally was an inspiration in his youth

When Graham was a child, the well-known actor Andrew Schofield (Graham calls him “Drew”) lived in his neighbourhood. He was, says Graham, “A beautiful man and an amazing actor,” and he recalls the influence he had. “There was a great show on the telly called Scully; he was the lead in it, and he lived across the road! So it was tangible, it was like: anything’s achievable because I’d see Drew walking to my nana’s van.” Schofield got more directly involved in helping a young Graham to become an actor: “We did a play in school, I think I was 10, we did Treasure Island, and I played Jim Hawkins, and he came to watch it; he said to me mam and dad after: ‘I think your lad’s got some talent, I think he’s really good, have you ever thought of going to the Everyman Youth Theatre?’ and that was it then!”

8. He once attempted suicide but family, friends and love brought him back from the brink

Graham talks about his lowest ebb with stark honesty. He recounts a series of difficult events, including his mother having a stillbirth when he was about 17 and his nana’s death. “I’d been through these few traumatic things and never really grieved,” he says. “I had a breakdown, with all of these things that had happened – traumatic – from my late teens that I hadn’t really dealt with or I hadn’t come to terms with.”

He returned home and things got worse: “I tried to hang myself. I went in and it was very calculated. I kicked the chair. And then I heard my nanna’s voice, and I know this sounds strange and weird and whatever, but it’s my truth – she shouted ‘Stephen!’ And I thought I’d gone, you know what I mean, because I’d tried to do that, and I just came to and opened my eyes. Thankfully the rope had snapped.” The support of his parents and best friends Lee and Jamie helped him “slowly come round to the understanding that it was okay; life was worth living,” while his burgeoning relationship with then-friend-now-wife Hannah changed things forever.

9. His wife and son helped out in a key scene in Line of Duty

In Line of Duty he played a policeman deep undercover, and his research for the role saw him to talk to a friend who had been undercover in the army. But a pivotal scene where his character talks on the phone was helped by a surprise on the other end of the line: “When we recorded the phone call conversation that [my character] speaks to his wife… I’ll let a secret out of the bag: that was Hannah on the other end of the phone, and she had [my son] Alfie with her as well, and she dropped a little: ‘It’s your dad’. I wasn’t expecting that!”