JohnnyDepp-Zone.com

In a recent interview with Alexander Pashby of LOVEFiLM.com, British actor Stephen Graham talked about his experience playing the trigger-happy gangster Baby Face Nelson in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies. “Public Enemies was a crazy, crazy thing actually,” Graham told the journalist. As an example, he described his audition process: “Me and Hannah [Stephen Graham’s wife] were in the house and I got asked to put myself on tape to play Baby Face Nelson, so I got out me little plastic golf club and Hannah just read a couple of lines off. I had to pretend to rob a bank, and I turned round to her and was like, ‘Are you sure this is working?’ and she said, ‘Yeah, it looks great.’ I said, ‘I feel ridiculous!’ I’ve got a plastic golf club and I’m telling people to sit down and put their hands up. There’s no one there. There’s just me and thin air. We sent it off and never heard nothing for about three weeks, and then all of a sudden me manager in the States phoned me up and said, ‘Are you sitting down?’ I said, ‘Why?’ and he said, ‘You’ve got the part. They want you to fly out in a couple of weeks.'”

Graham had nothing but praise for director Michael Mann and his fellow cast members. “[I]t was great to work with Michael Mann,” Graham said. “Such an enthusiastic . . . you know, it’s kind of like he’s 15, he’s such a little livewire bopping round the set. He’s got some great ideas and you feel like you’re really collaborating with him. And what a lovely cast to work with,” Graham added. “Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. Two fantastic actors of our generation.”

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the Stephen Graham interview on the Zone’s News & Views forum. To read the full interview, which deals with several other films as well as Public Enemies, CLICK HERE. –Part-Time Poet