Stephen Graham (Stephen Joseph Graham OBE) is a British actor, producer, and writer. He was born on 3 August 1973 in Kirkby, Lancashire. He had a Swedish grandmother and Jamaican grandfather, and has discussed his experience being a light-skinned multiracial person as he has brothers who have much darker skin. He was brought up by his mother, a social worker, and his stepfather, a mechanic who later became a paediatric nurse. He maintained a good relationship with his biological father. He attended Overdale Primary School in Kirkby, where he was encouraged to pursue an acting career at the age of eight by local actor Andrew Schofield, who had seen him perform as Jim Hawkins in a school production of Treasure Island. He then continued his education at Ruffwood Comprehensive and was subsequently introduced to Liverpool's Everyman Theatre at the age of 14, later going on to train at the Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance.
Graham began his career in 1990, with early notable roles including Tommy in Snatch (2000) and Shang in Gangs of New York (2002), before his breakthrough role as Andrew "Combo" Gascoigne in the film This Is England (2006).
On television, Graham reprised his role as Combo in This Is England '86 (2010), This Is England '88 (2011), and This Is England '90 (2015). He also starred as Det. Supt. Dave Kelly in the 2017 drama Little Boy Blue, John Corbett in the fifth series of Line of Duty (2019), Al Capone in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014), Eric McNally in the BBC drama Time (2021), and Hayden Stagg in the sixth series of Peaky Blinders (2022).
Graham's film roles include Scrum in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), Anthony Provenzano in The Irishman (2019), Andy Jones in Boiling Point (2021) and its sequel series of the same name (2023), and Patrick Mulligan in Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) and its sequel Venom: The Last Dance (2024).
Graham has received numerous accolades, including a Screen Actors Guild Award, nominations for five British Academy Television Awards and two British Academy Film Awards. Graham was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to drama, which he dedicated to his mother, who died in 2022.
In 2020, Graham co-founded the production company Matriarch Productions alongside his wife, actress Hannah Walters. They were married on 6 June 2008 and live in Ibstock, Leicestershire, having previously lived in the Beckenham area of London. They have a son and a daughter together.
