Hyena: ‘London is battered, beaten and confused’

Hyena (2014)

Stephen Graham doesn’t really do nice. He’s made his name playing a ragtag assortment of dodgy geezers, scary thugs and complete psychopaths, usually handy with their fists and spoiling for a fight. There was the vicious racist in This Is England (2007), the trigger-happy gangster in Public Enemies (2009), the angry football hooligan in Awaydays (2008), the homicidal mob boss in TV’s Boardwalk Empire and the manipulative small-time crook in Best Laid Plans (2012). Try suggesting that any of these men are nasty pieces of work though and he’s having none of it.

“I wouldn’t say that they’re bullies, I’d say they’re misunderstood,” he insists. “I like to play these unstable characters who are on the edge of society but try to bring a humanity to them.”

It’s this overwhelming compassion that he has for his characters that makes him so compelling to watch. With his bulldog charisma, Graham channels a combustible sense of rage and snarling intensity into each of his performances. But he also has an unfailing knack for hinting at tightly coiled vulnerabilities bubbling under the violence that makes you feel strangely sympathetic, no matter how savage his role might seem. He seems to have hacked out his own niche playing men enslaved by their own weaknesses, often with a twisted sense of morality, who lash out simply because they don’t know what else to do.

Hyena (2014)

But when Graham, 41, who hails from Kirkby, Liverpool, found out that director Gerard Johnson had created the part of shady copper David Knight in his latest film Hyena especially for him, he didn’t know if he should take it as a compliment “or if he was taking the piss”. He cackles: “Obviously, it was a compliment so it was alright in the end. As soon as I read it, I thought what a great character, what an interesting film.”

Michael Logan (Peter Ferdinando) is the murky police thriller’s weary anti-hero, a vice detective in charge of a special task force battling drug traffickers. But he and his predatory pack are too busy shovelling copious amounts of coke up their nostrils and making underhand deals with hardened criminals to care much about law enforcement. His hedonistic world starts to collapse when a nasty turf war explodes between some Turkish and Albanian gangsters. There’s a girl too (Elisa Lasowski), a prostitute that he tries to save as he tumbles further down his amoral abyss. But there are no good guys here, just various shades of bad.

Knight is Logan’s ex-partner but it’s clear there’s some bad blood between them. Graham doesn’t mince his words when describing his character. “He’s an absolute twat. In every line of work you get these people who are your friends and then, all of a sudden, once they get the opportunity, they’ll stab you in the back.”

Hyena (2014)

Johnson came up with the idea for the film after meeting a larger-than-life undercover police officer at a party with his cousin Ferdinando. The pair were fascinated by him; a combination of a grizzled long-haired rocker and boozy party animal. Not the type you’d ever expect to be a cop. He became the inspiration for Logan and his band of corrupt merry men.

Graham reveals that the filmmaker based his script on the experiences of a bent policeman who’s now a protected witness. “For 30 years, he was in the force so I know a lot of this is based on true events. Not everything is about fast cars and fancy guns. This is more about the underbelly of society. It paints a true picture, it’s very honest and it pulls no punches about the actual life of these police officers. Everybody in it is a hyena. They are all trying to hold on to bits of scrap that they can get and everyone is out for themselves.”

Johnson’s disturbing debut feature Tony (2009) was about a serial killer who concealed dead bodies around his flat. Hyena, set in Notting Hill, is about the secrets tucked away in our grimy capital: police corruption, human trafficking and prostitution. West London, with its cramped newsagents, seedy pubs and depressing strip joints, is transformed by cinematographer Benjamin Kracun into a beguiling neon-soaked nocturnal landscape. The film has the striking visuals of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives (2013) coupled with the spiky, depraved heart of Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant (1992).

Hyena (2014)

“We’re used to seeing London like a poster for the tourist information board,” Graham says. “This made you look through the cracks on the surface because this world exists more than that other glossy world. London itself is as battered, beaten and confused as all the other characters in it.” But he won’t be seeing the city for a while as he’s off to Australia after our interview to start shooting Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, where he’ll be reprising his role as Scrum alongside Johnny Depp.

Graham started off his career in TV and even enjoyed a brief stint on Coronation Street. He got his big break when Guy Ritchie cast him in Snatch (2000) and since then he’s worked with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann and Shane Meadows. His explosive performance in This Is England brought him widespread acclaim but he nearly gave it all up to become a youth worker after he couldn’t get another job for eight months after the film’s release.

Hyena (2014)

Thankfully, he didn’t quit and his role as skinhead Combo is the one he’ll always be proudest of. Graham has just finished filming the final instalment of the TV spin-off This Is England ’90 – the fourth time he’s worked with Meadows. “I’ve learned so much from Shane. It’s been a brilliant rollercoaster. He taught me to always be true to the character and true to the story.”

He brings the same passion to Hyena and the issues that it deals with. “There are questions being asked about the amount of drug trafficking that goes on and the young girls brought in from foreign countries. The statistics are there. It happens on a regular basis. This is just showing you a little glimpse. If we look at these things a bit more, maybe it will raise debate.”