The Adolescence star recalls appearing in the band’s music video – and ending up on a memorable night in Sheffield with them
Stephen Graham has revealed how he stepped in to defend pals the Arctic Monkeys on a wild night out – and punched a guy. Man of the moment thanks to his amazing Netflix hit Adolescence, the actor recalled how things took a turn when they had a run-in with an aggressive student.
Appearing in the video for their song When The Sun Goes Down, the band took him out in their home city Sheffield after filming – and it all got a bit moody. Stephen told: “When we finished they asked me for a drink, it was when I used to drink. I was like ‘Yeah, sure, go ahead then’.» He went to famous nightclub The Leadmill with frontman Alex Turner and drummer Matt Helders. Things got a bit crazy when someone started causing trouble.
READ MORE: Kids campaigners say TV show Adolescence must be game-changer for disaffected young men
“We were having a laugh and then it went a bit strange,” recalled Stephen. “They were on the rise. It was a student night. And this big, massive, tall student just came over and started giving them loads of jib. For no reason, from nowhere. He’s pushed Alex and he’s gone to slap Helders. And this little Scouser went ‘That’s not on’ and so I threw this punch and it hit the lad and he fell back and then it all went a bit… The lad ended up getting kicked out.”
Their crazy night didn’t end there. They went back to a house party with a girl Alex was cosying up to – but had to make a swift exit. He went on: “This lovely girl, she was being very friendly with Alex. We went back to the place where they lived and Alex went upstairs with this girl. Then he comes running down saying ‘We’ve got to go’. We were like ‘What’s wrong?’ and he said “Please, let’s go.’ Me and Helders snuck upstairs and there was posters of them all over the wall.”
Stephen says he’s not returned to the city since. “It was very funny, a great experience,” he told Jo Whiley on her Radio 2 show. “My first night out in Sheffield, my only night out in Sheffield.”
Stephen has been receiving all the plaudits for his hit Netflix series Adolescence. The drama tells the story of a 13-year-old boy accused of stabbing a girl – raising the topics of bullying on social media, incel messaging and skewed views on sexual violence – which turn him into a killer. The drama stars Owen Cooper, who plays Jamie, and Stephen as his dad.
Show writer Jack Thorne called for “radical action” to tackle the issues the show raises. He said: “I’ve had lots of responses from people I haven’t heard from in years telling me about conversations they’re now having with their children. That’s really gratifying.
«My son’s headteacher stopped me at the school gates to say ‘I’d like to talk to you about this and I’d like to think about what our school can do and what other schools can do.”
Thorne called on the government to take action: “He is a vulnerable kid and then he hears this stuff which makes sense to him about why he’s isolated, why he’s alone, why he doesn’t belong and he ingests it. He doesn’t have the filters to understand what’s appropriate.
“At his age with all these different pressures on him and with the peculiarities of his society around him, he starts to believe the only way to reset this balance is through violence.”
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