Stephen Graham on working with director Jan Komasa and co-star Andrea Riseborough on TIFF title 'Good Boy'

Directed by the Oscar-nominated Polish filmmaker Jan Komasa, TIFF premiere Good Boy is a dark, edgy thriller about a middle-class couple who kidnap 19-year-old Tommy (Anson Boon) and keep him locked up in the basement of the country home they share with son Jonathan (Kit Rakusen).

There, Chris (Stephen Graham) and Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough) endeavour to show Tommy — who typically spends his time partying or posting clips of himself and his friends joyriding and beating up schoolkids — the error of his ways, hoping to transform him into a ‘good boy’ courtesy of tough love and some Clockwork Orange-style reprogramming.

Filmed on location in Yorkshire, in the north of England, with interiors shot in Warsaw, Good Boy feels in many ways like a companion piece to Graham’s hit Net­flix series Adolescence, dealing with another troubled and violent youth from a dysfunctional family and the complicated issue of responsibility. “It’s kind of a twisted, horrible fairy tale,” says Graham, talking to Screen from Pittsburgh, where he is playing a serial killer opposite Liev Schreiber in TV series Lazarus. “It’s like a retelling of Hansel and Gretel.”

Jeremy Thomas, Ewa Piaskowska and Jerzy Skolimowski produced the UK-Poland co-production, which was co-written by first-time screenwriter Bartek Bartosik and Naqqash Khalid, a Screen International Star of Tomorrow in 2020. HanWay Films handles international sales.

Graham talks to Screen about collaborating with “wonderful lunatic” Jan Komasa, creating his character and why he wore a wig for the role. 

What attracted you to Good Boy?
The director. I watched his [2019] film Corpus Christi, which I thought was fantastic. Then I read the script and was like, “Yeah, this could be interesting.” I watched a lot of European cinema from an early age — my dad got me into it. I love the sensibility and the way they do these normal things, then twist them, which is something we [in the UK] don’t really do. My [filmmaking] school is more social realism so I thought this could be an interesting project. It’s basically a European film with British accents. And obviously Andrea [Riseborough] as well. Andrea is a wonderful actor.

Good Boy feels like a continuation of the themes explored in Adolescence. Did you see it in those terms?
When I watched it the other day, I was like, “Wow, okay, am I making focal points about young men and society?” But it was purely accidental. Those themes are interesting. Especially from where Jan was coming from. He was saying he had interviewed a classical Chinese pianist for a documentary in Poland and one of the questions he asked was, “Given the oppression of China, do you feel you would rather stay [in Poland] and not go back?” And this artist said, “No, I like where I live. I like that sense of authority. If they hadn’t provided me with the ability to play the piano, this talent wouldn’t have been nurtured.” It’s kind of a flipside to Munchausen syndrome. You don’t realise that your oppressor is oppressing you.

However, with respect to mine and Andrea’s characters, they’re trying to teach [Tommy] a different way of life, be it in a brutal way. But what Tommy thinks is his freedom outside of the world they’ve brought him into, is not really freedom. He’s constructed this character he feels he must be to survive. He’s not a working-­class kid from a block of flats; he’s trying to find a sense of identity. That’s where we need to be careful. If you look at the influences [on young people], a lot of education and the way they lead themselves is through this. [Graham holds up his cellphone.] It’s difficult on young men, and even more so young women, to have to live up to this image that’s being put out there of what they should be.

The film is light on backstory and motivation. There are mentions of a “Charlie”, who we assume is Chris and Kathryn’s dead son. But it’s never explained why they kidnap Tommy.
We had conversations about it. That’s why the mattress is downstairs. Their son was an addict and they were trying to help him. The only way they felt they could do it was by keeping him and then he ran away, and they’ve never seen him since. But I said at the very beginning, I don’t think we should tell the audience that. We should leave it to their imaginations. So it’s ambiguous in that respect.

The reason [Chris] picks Tommy is because Tommy’s fucking his life up, but he sees something in there that’s a possibility. He also thinks if he goes missing, no-one will miss him. And they didn’t. In that respect, he’s chosen his, dare we say, victim or his subject cleverly and wisely. But again, that’s what I love about European films. They don’t give you all the answers. You’re like, what the fuck? I love that. It creates conversation and debate.

But Andrea’s character, she’s gone through the grief of the loss of their son and has been poleaxed by that and is bordering on catatonic. And in order to try and get some glimmer of sunshine back into my wife’s eyes, I’ll kidnap another young boy who would’ve been the age of our son, to try and make her happy again. He’s done all of this to please his wife.

There’s a sense of artifice to Chris, as if he is ashamed of who he is.
He’s a lad from Liverpool, but there are quite a few people who turn into chameleons to hide their accent and where they’re from to fit in with society. He’s one of them. He went to university, he met [his wife] at university and she’s from an affluent family. That’s her father’s house [they live in]. I’ve got a cousin who talks like that, and that’s how a few teachers spoke when I was at school. He’s ashamed of where he came from because he doesn’t feel like he’s worthy of being in the world he’s in with his wife, but he’s worked hard to get to where he was.

Is that why Chris wears a wig? Was that in the script?
I liked the concept of a fella that’s going bald but wants to wear a wig. And I’ll be honest with you, our Alfie [Graham’s son with actress Hannah Walters] showed me these new wigs that younger men wear today, through the essence of vanity. I remember at school some teachers had fucking dodgy wigs. But today the wigs are really good. He does it for his wife. He wears the wig because he wants his wife to love him.

You mentioned the reason you wanted to do the film was because of director Jan Komasa. How was the collaboration?
He is a wonderful lunatic. Frustratingly mad some of the time, then just pure genius and lovely, but in a style and a way of working I’d never experienced. I think Andrea was the same. And Anson. We were like, “Wow, okay,” but we went with it. We were, “Let’s get behind his vision and see what it is.” And the experience was fantastic. It was an interesting journey — stuff I’ve never experienced before as an actor. But all for the greater good of the piece. He’s a very unique man and it was a rather unique experience. 

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