Stephen Graham
Stephen Graham
Stephen Grahamis an English film and television actor who is best known for his roles as Tommy in the film Snatch, Andrew "Combo" Gascoigne in This Is Englandas well as its television sequels, This Is England '86, This Is England '88and This Is England '90, Danny Ferguson in Occupation, Billy Bremner in The Damned United, notorious bank robber Baby Face Nelson in Public Enemies, Scrum in the Pirates of the Caribbean films and a crooked police detective in the acclaimed...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth3 August 1973
Life's so much easier when you're not always maintaining two worlds: the one formed of lies, which feels real, and the one you live in, which often feels like lies. So easy to get them confused.
When I am writing a novel, though, then it's usually three or four hours a day. Ideally, right after lunch until three or four, but sometimes picking up again around ten, going until a touch after midnight. I rarely write in the morning, unless I'm on deadline. I do like rewriting in the morning, though. Guess it's the way my brain's put together. Or, the way it's falling apart.
There's no really other way to learn writing than by writing. So accelerate that as much as you can. The more you write, the better you'll get. What also helps, though, is walking away from broken stuff. Not everything's going to work. Killing two years of your life trying to resuscitate a dying novel, I don't know. Why not just write a different one? You'll have more ideas. You can't help having ideas.
I do love the challenge of screenplays. They're so difficult, such an alien form. It makes them endlessly fascinating. Something I can't keep my fingers out of.
The stories I respect most aren't those with the rich, dense prose, but those which achieve a rich, deep effect with simple little nothing-sentences, lines I won't possibly remember, because they simply functioned, didn't draw attention to themselves, were properly humble.
This is form and content and diction and tone and imagination all looking up at the exact same moment: When Molly Tanzer claps once at the front of the classroom.
This is what noir is, what it can be when it stops playing nice--blunt force drama stripped down to the bone, then made to dance across the page.
Angels, demons, sex. Heaven, hell, war. Blood and royalty, history and magic, fire and ice. And a story you cannot put down. This is fantasy at its best.