A Thousand Blows: Hulu Stars Talk Characters' Intense Rivalry In Steven Knight's 1880 London Boxing Series (Exclusive)

The Direct sat down with A Thousand Blows stars Stephen Graham and Malachi Kirby (Hezekiah Moscow) to discuss their new period piece set in London during the 1880s.

The series, which was created by Peaky Blinders showrunner Steven Knight, follows Jamaican brothers Hezekiah and Alec, who find themselves suddenly getting entangled with London's bare-knuckle boxing scene and its criminal underbelly.

This leads them straight into the paths of colorful personalities such as Graham's Sugar Goodson, the emperor of the East End boxing world, and Erin Doherty's Marry Carr, a woman who leads a ring of thieves called the Forty Elephants.

Stephen Graham on His Character's Intense Rivalry With Hezekiah

"There's a New World on the Horizon..."

• The Direct: "[Sugah] has an intense rivalry [with Hezekiah]. Can you talk about how each character sees the other and how you found that intense fire that rages between the two of you on screens through your performances?"

Stephen Graham: Well, for Sugar, Hezekiah represents, it's kind of paradoxical because Hezekiah represents everything he sees that is good within himself, and he also sees everything that he has to the fear with that outcome of change. Do you know what I mean? There's a new world on the horizon. There are things coming in that are going to change the whole landscape of London, and that's what Sugar is afraid of.

Sugar wants to be entrenched in the past, and he's fought for what he has, so he doesn't want to lose that. He doesn't want to let that go. But when he first has that fight with Hezekiah, what he sees in Hezekiah is that bravery, you know, the heart of a lion, which he himself thinks he also has.

But there's that moment where he sees Mary's interaction with Hezekiah, and that's what brings in the, you know, that's where the envy and the jealousy and all of those human emotions that we often try to hide, and hopefully, you know, they're the darker elements of our nature, of human nature. But that's what he sees within Hezekiah, that prospect of change.

And then within the context of that, you know, the whole kind of the gentrification of boxing as it goes from that bare-knuckle element to the Queensberry rules, where it's like, as it gets gentrified, you know, places, the likes of New York which has been gentrified, or it's different elements of London which have gone through gentrification.

And in that aspect, I think we show this through the boxing, and it's like it's taken from the streets, where men of the streets and from those back alleys and then literally in the back room of the pub, may put a couple of a few pounds on our few shillings to bet... Whereas then it becomes something for the gentleman to be able to watch and find his entertainment.

Whereas we then put gloves on these two men and treat them as our new form of entertainment. We watch them beat the crap out of each other. So it's that gentrification of the sport which also represents, it's a kind of underbelly and a subtext for what is happening to London at that particular time.

Malachi Kirby on Introducing Audiences to 1880 London

"There Is a Lot About This Show That I Don't Think Has Really Been Seen Yet."

• The Direct: "As someone from America, I can safely say that I don't know anything about London in the 1880s, so this series has been eye-opening in that regard. Can you talk about how exciting it is to introduce audiences to the complicated historical dynamics at play that they may not have even known existed?"

Malachi Kirby: It's a weird one because when I'm, you know, taking on something like this, I'm not thinking about all of the people that are going to watch it at some point, you know what I mean. But actually, yeah, now that you say it, there is a lot about this show that I don't think has really been seen yet. Not through the lens of TV, at least.

And the thing that I love about it is that we're not really going into the realm of fantasy. This is a reality that I have known in terms of what London and what this particular part of London looked like in the 1880s. We have this idea of London being this gray, pale, just dirty place, you know, in terms of East London. But actually, it was very colorful.

I think [Stephen Graham was] saying a point as well about the costumes. And you know, we've seen them in black and white, but the costume person that we had, [Maja Meschede], she was incredible. She was able to draw out color from the black and white pictures to basically depict what the actual clothing would have looked like at the time. And that's what she did with the show.

Especially when you look at the Forty Elephants and the vibrancy of those colors. Like, I don't think we've ever really seen a period drama that looks like that. And so that was exciting for me.

And then you have the multicultural aspect. And again, it's not like trying to tick boxes. This is what London looked like. You know, these people were contributing to the foundation of this place for a very long time. So to be able to depict that in the show, yeah, for me, it was very exciting to be able to do that.

See the full video interview below:

A Thousand Blows lands on Hulu on February 21.