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’.
‘We had a great fight coordinator, we had wonderful stuntmen, and we just went for it,’ he continued. ‘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, 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.
‘That gorgeous photo, we actually have it in our office, because it’s what started the whole journey.’
From that photo, the drama’s creator Steven took Hezekiah’s story, combining it with the history of the Forty Elephants and Sugar Goodson, and fictionalising how these real figures could have crossed paths.
‘They would have maybe possibly walked the same streets at some point, but as far as we know, they never met each other,’ Stephen said.
‘For me personally, I wanted to play a man who was very stoic and who hides his emotions, because ultimately, he’s a survivor, and he has to survive in this world. It’s a brutal world. So I think for me, Sugar represents that old way of living, and he’s frightened of this new world that’s on its way.’
For Erin, the conception of Mary began during the first table read, when she and Stephen had to work out how Mary and Sugar would have known each other before the events of episode one.
‘I needed this moment to really understand who our version of these people were, because they’re taken from the fact that these real people existed, but actually we were like but we need to then make them ours. So that was integral, and that’s where it all started for me.’
After Stephen shared a piece of music that he’d been listening to get into character, Erin ‘latched onto’ that piece of information and to her co-star, as she felt that was the ‘key’ to unpacking the multi-layered tale.
Malachi outlined how he used ‘three main things as anchors’ to transform for his role, including travelling to Jamaica to ‘soak up the culture’, despite him and Hezekiah having lived more than a century apart.
‘Even though that’s where I’m from, it’s a different thing when you’re there with the people and in that land,’ he stated, adding that similarly to Erin and Stephen working out their characters’ relationship, he did the same thing with his co-star Francis Lovehall, who plays Hezekiah’s best friend Alec and also travelled to Jamaica with him.
Lastly, Malachi referenced the aforementioned photograph of the real Hezekiah, spending a lot of time looking at the picture while ‘trying to channel’ the 19th-century boxer during rehearsals and filming.
‘I can’t tell you how many times I looked at it, just trying to figure out who this man was,’ he said.
‘It is mesmerising. In the picture, it’s like, what was going on? He doesn’t give away much in his eyes, but it was just trying to decipher, what are you? Why are you? What do you sound like? What are you feeling like? What’s your heart?’
A Thousand Blows premieres on Friday February 21 on Disney Plus.
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