Stephen Graham thanked Robert De Niro during a heartfelt moment on The One Show for kickstarting his love of acting and film at an early age.
The two heavyweight actors appeared on the BBC show on Thursday (13 March) to promote their new projects.
Graham is currently earning rave reviews for his gripping new Netflix drama Adolescence. Meanwhile, fresh off the heels of Zero Day, De Niro is returning to the gangster genre with the movie The Alto Knights.
The pair have previously starred alongside one another in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed The Irishman but Graham revealed on The One Show that De Niro holds a special place in his heart beyond sharing a screen.
Graham recalled when he was a teenager and his father asking him when he was 14 if he was serious about becoming an actor. When Graham said yes his father decided to take him to the local video store where they rented three movies: The Godfather, Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter.
“Then we went home and we watched these three films and we watched them all over the weekend, Graham said. “And, you know, it was just… You were the beginning of my whole love of favourite films, really.”
Turning to De Niro, he added: “I don’t think I ever told you that. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
De Niro, 81, stars in Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter, both of which earned him an Oscar nomination.
The One Show has since shared the interaction on Instagram and the post has been flooded with warm responses by viewers.
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One person said: “I think there’s probably a young boy saying the same thing to his dad about Stephen Graham. He’s a brilliant actor.”
Another wrote: “A legend being thanked by a future legend.”
A third added: “Stephen is so humble. A brilliant actor, a true gentleman and icon .. a true inspiration.”
Speaking to The Independent about Adolescence, Graham issued a warning to parents about the dangers of the internet.
Shot in one-take, each episode follows characters in real time as they attempt to get to the bottom of the incident. Exploring topical issues including incel culture, misogyny and the online “manosphere”, Graham was inspired by news reports of stabbings of young girls.
“I read an article about a young boy stabbing a young girl,” the A Thousand Blows star said. “And then maybe a couple of months later, on the news there was [another] young boy who’d stabbed a young girl, and if I’m really honest with you, they hurt my heart.”
He explained that the storyline explores a complexity of topics and that parents need to be “mindful” of the external influences working on their children.
“It’s just being mindful of the fact that not only we parent our children, and not only the school educates our children,” he said. “But also there’s influences that we have no idea of that are having profound effects on our young culture, profound effects, positive and extremely negative. So it’s having a look at that and seeing that we’re all accountable.”
