Stephen Graham’s Gym Habits Have Spread to the Whole Family

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After getting in shape to play Sugar Goodson in the new Disney+ series ‘A Thousand Blows’, Stephen Graham’s workouts have become a family affair. Speaking from the red carpet at the BFI London Film Festival, Stephen also remained tight-lipped on the upcoming ‘Peaky Blinders’ movie.    He reunites with ‘Peaky Blinders’ creator Steven Knight in the new Victorian-era British boxing drama, alongside Malachi Kirby and Erin Doherty. ‘A Thousand Blows’ launches on Disney+ in 2025.  Report by Burtonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

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00:00Thanks for your time. I appreciate you. Please tell me, where does Sugar rank in the list

00:04of menacing, intimidating, strong characters that you've played? Is he perhaps the toughest

00:08of all?

00:09Yeah, I'd say so. I'd say Sugar is definitely the toughest character I've ever played. Yeah,

00:16without fail, I think, yeah.

00:17And I mean, it's clear in the promos that we've seen of yourself, the physical condition

00:22you get in, is that essentially, does that all build upon the character? Did you need

00:25to get into that big shape to portray someone so menacing?

00:28Yeah, hugely. As soon as we kind of came up with the concept and the idea, and the fact

00:33that he was a bare knuckle fighter, a survivor, we kind of looked, I worked very closely with

00:40my trainer, two trainers. I had a boxing trainer, and I also had a trainer who helped me with

00:46my weight lifting and my diet and everything. So Rob did all my training physically, and

00:50Graham did all my boxing training with me. And it was five days a week, so it was very

00:55intense, do you know what I mean? And that's what we wanted to use, that kind of, it was

00:59important to have that physical element, to show that he's a fighter, and that also carried

01:04on into his life, and how he's got to where he's got to. He was a fighter and a survivor,

01:09do you know what I mean?

01:10It's all for a role, obviously, for this role that you're playing, but are you now inspired,

01:13is Stephen Graham inspired to train five days a week?

01:16Yeah, well, I don't do five, I do, no, actually, I do like four, maybe, I suppose, four and

01:21With my son, with Alfie, me and Alfie do the gym a lot, and with our Grace's boyfriend

01:25now, and Josh as well, so, you know, it's really, it's kind of, it's been infectious,

01:31and the rest, it's spread to the rest of the family, do you know what I mean? So we kind

01:35of work out together now, which is great.

01:36I love that. And obviously, at first glance, A Thousand Blows does look like just purely

01:40a boxing period piece, but it's so much more than that, isn't it? Because I'm learning

01:43a lot about the 40 elephants in this pick-boxing world. Are you happy to be able to show both

01:47sides of this world in Victorian London?

01:49Yeah, completely, and, you know, I think one of our objectives was to show how these

01:55people survived, how these people managed to survive on a daily basis back then, and

02:00if you look at it properly, you know, there's no villains, there's no heroes, there's no

02:04real villains, everybody's trying their hardest to survive and make it, do you know what I

02:10mean? And for us to be able to show how diverse it was culturally back then, and it wasn't,

02:15you know, racism, of course, existed, but it wasn't a big key element, and that was

02:20one of Steve's things that he really wanted to bring into the piece. It was more of a

02:25class divide, right, you know, because everyone was in the same boat, everyone had to survive.

02:30So surprisingly, when you look at the historical content of it, you know, it was a big melting

02:36pot as it is today, but a lot of these people, especially in the East End, they got on with

02:40each other, do you know what I mean? You looked after each other and you did whatever it took

02:44to survive, basically.

02:46It's the latest in, you know, what has been a brilliant list of collaborations between

02:49yourself and Stephen. Today, there has been a press release about the Peaky Blinders movie

02:54which is coming out, so what can you tell everyone about this, or is it all real for

02:58Shush at this time?

02:59I can't say nothing, I haven't even started filming yet, so I don't know what's going on.

03:02Can you tell me when you start filming?

03:03I can't tell nothing, no, I can't tell you nothing.

03:06But this is, like, yet another brilliant collaboration between you two. Is this a collaboration which

03:11you hope does spark more projects over the years? Can you see some work that's going on?

03:16You know, I'd love to. Steve's a wonderful man and he's very creative and, you know,

03:20he's one of the people who I look to if we've got an idea, that's one of the first doors

03:25you want to knock at, do you know what I mean? And he's great and he's such a wonderful collaborator.

03:30So hopefully, you know, these things carry on in the future.

03:33Fantastic, thank you so much for your time, I appreciate you, enjoy tonight.

03:36Cheers, mate, thanks a lot, thank you.

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