'It's not just about throwing punches'
Facing Stephen Graham in the ring isn’t for the faint-hearted, says Malachi Kirby
- Rosie Millard
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The arrival of Hezekiah Moscow, played by Bafta winner Malachi Kirby, is the catalyst for the action as A Thousand Blows begins. Hezekiah is a young man on the make, fresh off the boat from Jamaica and keen to earn his fortune in Victorian London. He has ambitions to become a lion tamer but soon becomes embroiled in the world of bare-knuckle fighting, run by the fearsome Henry “Sugar” Goodson (Stephen Graham).
To play Hezekiah convincingly, Kirby learnt how to box. “It’s not just about throwing some punches,” he explains. “You’ve got to know how to read people. You’ve got to know how to get out of the way and survive.” Especially if your opponent is Stephen Graham? “He’s menacing! When you’re standing opposite him, he’s fully in the zone, and so you’re in the zone, too. Of course, we’re not planning to hit each other. But also, you know, it wouldn’t be the first time stuff’s gone wrong on a set, so we’ve gotta take care of each other.”
For London-born Kirby, working on a period drama set in the capital had a familiar air. “It didn’t feel like a stretch for me to go back to that period. I don’t really know how much has changed with regards to how working-class Londoners go about life, even down to how we sound.”
Countering the observation that actors now only spring from privilege, the 35-year-old tells me how he started. “I grew up in a council flat in Battersea. I’d go past mansions on the way to school, but I didn’t notice them. They didn’t exist. There was Battersea Park, there was the council flat I lived in and there was school.”
Yet one thing he shares with his character in A Thousand Blows is the gift of limitless expectations. He’s always had it. “Hezekiah has this fierce ability to dream, and is not defined by the way he looks or his circumstances. It’s the way I feel.”
Malachi Kirby as Darcus Howe in Mangrove. Disney
What gave him that confidence? “It’s down to my mama. I grew up as an only child. My dad passed when I was six, so it was just me and my mum. I had a very close relationship with her. She raised me to believe anything was possible. Everyone assumes my mum probably didn’t take to the idea of me acting, but she was the reason I started. I was a very shy kid. She said, ‘This would be good for you. Give it a go.’”
Following acclaimed turns in the 2016 remake of Roots and the Black Mirror episode Men against Fire, Kirby won a Bafta in 2021 for his role as Darcus Howe in the Mangrove instalment of Steve McQueen’s Little Axe anthology. He has much to thank his mother for. “My mum never got to choose where she lived. She wanted me to have that choice. She wanted me to grow up and be able to choose where I live. And I’ve been able to do that.”
He pauses. “There is this passage in Scripture which says God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And even now, I’m confounded. I don’t know how I have got here. I didn’t have the fight that a lot of artists have had. Actually, it was the opposite. I was always trying to run away from the spotlight, but the opportunities kept presenting themselves and challenging me. And it was only about five years into doing it professionally that I went, ‘Oh, I think I can do this.’”
Now he wants to pay it forward. “I would say to anyone that aspires to act, you have to dream and protect that dream. It may sometimes feel foolish, but that is part of my strength. That and my faith in God. That all helps me think that anything is possible.
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“It’s a numbers thing — you’re always going to have more auditions than your parts. And if you are doing great, you’ll get one out of ten auditions. That could feel like rejection, but I see it as redirection. It’s not that people didn’t like me. It’s not that I’m not good enough. It’s just that particular way wasn’t my journey. I’m supposed to be going somewhere else. And so you keep going.”
Authors
Rosie Millard
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