How Stephen Graham's struggle with depression inspired him to help the next generation

  • Video report by ITV News Arts Editor Nina Nannar

You could use the word ubiquitous about Stephen Graham right now.

From ITV crime series White House Farm, Hollywood film The Irishman, BBC festive drama A Christmas Carol, Line Of Duty - the list goes on.

He’s everywhere.

Overnight success?

Not a bit of it.

After the 2006 film This Is England, he seemed set for glory.

But it never came, instead eight months of no job offers followed.

He hit the depths of depression and was about to begin a career as a youth worker instead of acting, when things slowly turned around.

His history, he says, is why he wants to help other groups of working class underrepresented young people to get into the TV and film industries and forge a long career, tell stories from different perspectives, share experiences that haven’t involved easy passage into the higher echelons of the best schools and access to the best opportunities.

He is involved with Bafta Elevate, in which selected participants from diverse underrepresented groups are given advice from those already making it in the industry, on how to get work, access jobs and basically overcome the barriers that are still too prevalent in the creative industries.

Nicky McGregor, Faraz Ayub and Nahel Tzegai were full of praise of the project.

The Bafta and Oscar nominations this year show only too starkly that something is wrong in terms of diverse talent and diverse stories getting recognised.

Stephen Graham and his partner have set up their own production company Matriarch with an aim to give people from those groups a chance to get into the industry both in front of and behind the camera.

Their first project, the film Boiling Point, is in production now.

With Channel 4 making a move to Leeds, the BBC already ensconced in Manchester, he says there is slowly recognition that more than half the country needs more of a look in when it comes to film and TV, working class northerners should be allowed to showcase their lives and stories more easily.

And, he says, that means they’ve got to have a chance to write their stories, and appear on TV and film, Geordie accents and all!

After all, he adds, we don’t all live in Downton.