Adolescence star Stephen Graham explains his "twisted, warped" character’s motivations in unsettling new film

Over the years, Stephen Graham has proved several times over that he's one of the most versatile actors currently working, and in new drama The Good Boy he's playing a character quite unlike any we've seen him play before.

The film – which arrived in UK cinemas at the end of last week – sees him starring as Chris, a man who kidnaps a 19-year-old hoodlum named Tommy (Anson Boon) and, along with his wife Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough), puts him through a quite deranged rehabilitation process.

There's a great deal of ambiguity regarding Chris, his family set-up and his motivations for capturing Tommy, but much of it seems to relate to a character named Charlie, who is frequently referenced and appears to have passed away some time in the fairly recent past.

Charlie's true identity – possibly Chris and Kathryn's son or possibly an earlier kidnap victim – is never definitively revealed, and according to the film's director Jan Komasa, he made the cast come up with their own interpretations of the backstory.

"What we did with Stephen and Andrea, and Kit [Rakusen, who plays the couple's young son Jonathan] was we said, 'Why don't you guys come up with your your own version of the story, what really happened to this family, and don't tell each other this,'" he explained in an exclusive interview with Radio Times.

"So they did it and they played different things, and the things that they are playing... those things inspired me to change the script a little and the way I shot it to fit it closely to their characters."

For his part, Graham explained that having a "solid backstory" was vital when it came to sketching out Chris's motivations, and he ended up with a very clear view as to why he was going through with such an unsettlingly odd scheme.

"For me, Chris was a man who loves his wife dearly, and she's in this state of catatonic grief," he explained. "So it's... how can I pull it out of that? What can I do to fix that? And I think that's what we try and do a lot as human beings, we try to fix the problem in another person.

"So the way he feels he can fix it in his twisted, warped head, is to get her another son, like you'd go and buy a dog. Hence The Good Boy," he added. "You'd buy a puppy. He didn't steal a baby but he stole someone that he thought no one would miss greatly, [and it] turned out to be the truth.

"And then they tried to educate him and change his way of thinking, and change the way he looks at the world through a different lens. So it was a joy, and it was a gift, and it was a lot of fun. It was a fella I've never played before."

Komasa also added that the film might leave some audience members with one or two difficult questions to ponder after they've finished watching.

"When you watch it, you're like, 'Oh everybody's so wrong in this film,'" he said.

"But then when you watch it more, like the closer to the end, you're kind of like, 'What if they are right?' So that's the whole thing!"

The Good Boy is now showing in UK cinemas.

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