‘Bare-knuckle boxing opposite Stephen Graham after his 6-month transformation was terrifying’

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. Heart pounding. A drip of sweat falling from your brow. Thinly-wrapped hands clenched in fists. A lairy crowd jeering from the sidelines. Your opponent viciously staring you down. One can only imagine the terror of stepping into the ring for a bare-knuckle boxing match. In real life, but also for the actors filming Steven Knight’s new gritty period drama A Thousand Blows on Disney Plus.

The TV series from the creator of Peaky Blinders is set in the vicious Victorian era of 1880s London, weaving together the tales of the all-female gang the Forty Elephants, two best friends who’ve travelled to England from Jamaica, and an illegal underground boxing ring. Ahead of the launch, Metro spoke to lead stars Stephen Graham, Erin Doherty and Malachi Kirby, whose characters literally come to blows as they endure a gruelling fight for survival on the unforgiving streets of the Big Smoke.

In the series, Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi) arrives from Jamaica and soon finds himself facing off against intimidating veteran boxer Sugar Goodson (Stephen), who counts Mary Carr, the cunning queen of the Forty Elephants Mary Carr (Erin) as one of his allies. When the first look images and trailer for A Thousand Blows were released, numerous people were astounded by Stephen’s physical transformation, with the actor revealing in our interview that he started training six months before filming began.

‘They’re long days shooting those fight sequences, from first thing in the morning to last thing at night. You have to switch on, you have to be riding it every time. But the process to get into that condition started months and months and months before,’ the 51-year-old said. ‘I had my own boxing coach, Graham, and a trainer brought back home. I was lucky, because I knew I was doing it. I think I started six months before we actually shot to get myself into that condition.’.

The Peaky Blinders and Taboo star stressed how much ‘fun’ it was on set, where they ensured that there was a ‘safe atmosphere’. ‘Who else gets to go to work and throw punches, and get told that they’ve done a good job? It’s a lot of fun, it’s great,’ he continued. ‘We had a great fight coordinator, we had wonderful stuntmen, and we just went for it. We had stunt doubles, which… got a little bit angry because they weren’t used. But that’s great – for us to be able to do our own stuff is fantastic.’.

As for Malachi, what was it like for him to enter the ring opposite renowned on-screen tough guy Stephen?. ‘Terrified,’ the 35-year-old admitted while laughing, before addressing Stephen directly, with Erin sitting in between them in the London hotel room. ‘Standing opposite someone like you, it is terrifying. But you know, Hezekiah weren’t scared, so I couldn’t be.’. Despite the fear, the Small Axe star found the atmosphere during the boxing scenes ‘electric’.

‘There’s so many times where as an actor in that moment, sometimes you’re not getting the energy that you need externally, and you’ve just got to channel it. But honestly, you had to do so little to get there. You just have to be present.’. Stephen added that the ‘outstanding’ supporting artists were ‘immersed’ in the scenes. ‘They gave it everything. They lifted the atmosphere,’ he recalled.

In A Thousand Blows, you don’t want to get on the wrong side of Erin’s character Mary. In a patriarchal society (despite Queen Victoria sitting on the throne), she and the Forty Elephants cleverly use their cunning to scheme and steal, complete with knuckle dusters tucked into their petticoats. Speaking about her character’s connection to the palpable violence in the show – and referencing a shocking moment when Mary puts a gun in a man’s mouth – the 32-year-old shared: ‘I just loved it, because I’d never seen it from a female perspective. But also I think it’s just so intertwined in the world.

‘It felt completely necessary that this woman would be swept up in that way of expressing yourself as well. That was why I fell in love with her. ‘As Stephen previously mentioned, [in] that world, you’re toeing the line regardless of gender. You’re toeing the line of life and death every step, every moment of every day. So violence has to be incorporated, because if you don’t lean into that aspect and primal part of yourself, you’re gonna die. It felt so essential to bring that into Mary’s storyline as well.’.

Stephen showered make-up artist Sian Wilson with praise, who was the brainchild behind all of the ‘meticulously planned’ cuts, bruises and scrapes that look all-too real on the small screen. The attention to detail in the series goes beyond what viewers will see in the final cut, as the show actually began thanks to a single photograph of one man – the real Hezekiah. ‘We had a kind of a blueprint. Malachi had – and this is how the whole thing began – this most beautiful photograph of himself, of Hezekiah. It is a striking image of a strong, proud man in that era, which makes you immediately think, hang on, how’s he got to this position?’ Stephen recollected.