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James Nelson-Joyce is still buzzing. Two days ago, he not only watched his beloved Liverpool FC clinch the Premier League title but led a celebratory dance with his heroes. “I ended up in the Anfield boardroom after the match, then partied with the team,” he grins. “The DJ clocked that I was there, played Andy Williams’ House of Bamboo and it all went right off.”
The 36-year-old Merseysider is now starring in BBC gangland thriller This City Is Ours, in which a local crime family perform a choreographed line-dance to the loungecore classic. “Harvey Elliott and a few other players dragged me on to the dancefloor and made me do it with them,” he chuckles in disbelief. “They all love the show, which is a huge compliment.”
Nelson-Joyce is on something of a winning streak himself. As well as This City Is Ours – which reaches its finale this Sunday – he’s a scene-stealer in the hit period boxing drama A Thousand Blows and the latest season of Black Mirror. His simmering screen presence and canny taste in projects have made him one of the hottest actors around – and it’s partly thanks to a fateful meeting in Nando’s.
“I’d just left drama school and saw Stephen Graham in Nando’s with Hannah [Walters, his wife]. If it was anyone else, I’d never have gone over but Stephen was my idol. So I just said, ‘Look, lovely to meet you. You’re the reason I got into acting.’ I told them to enjoy their dinner and sat back down. A bit later, Hannah came over and went: ‘There’s something about you. You remind me of Stephen when he was younger. Here’s our email.’”
Two years later, Nelson-Joyce landed a role in true-crime drama Little Boy Blue as teen gang member James Yates, who supplied the gun that killed 11-year-old Rhys Jones. Graham played Det Supt Dave Kelly. “At the table reading, I felt these two eyes burning into the side of my head and it was Stephen. He whispered ‘You’re that lad from Nando’s, yeah?’ and gave me a thumbs up. It was the biggest pat on the back I could’ve got.”
Graham has since become a friend and mentor, even hooking up Nelson-Joyce with his agent. “He told me, ‘I’ve only ever done this once before and that was for Jodie [Comer]. I was like, ‘Bloody hell!’ It’s since I met Stephen and Hannah that everything good has come into my life. I’m so grateful but he didn’t just do it for me. He’s helped a whole generation of working-class actors.”
Nelson-Joyce and Graham have shared the screen three times. After Little Boy Blue came Jimmy McGovern’s prison drama Time and Steven Knight’s A Thousand Blows, in which they portray pugilistic siblings Treacle and Sugar Goodson. “It’s such a treat to play brothers,” smiles Nelson-Joyce. “He’s still my idol, as much as he’s one of my closest friends.” Nelson-Joyce’s preparation for the period piece got off to a shaky start. “I’m a history nerd and learned how malnourished everyone was in the 1880s, so I slimmed down for the part. I turned up for the first day of fight training and there was Stephen looking like a mini Mike Tyson and Malachi [Kirby] ripped to shreds. I thought ‘I’ve gone about this all wrong. Better get on the protein quick.’”
He and Graham were last seen beating each other senseless in a brutal pub brawl. “That fight took a full day’s filming. Because me and Stephen are so close, we pushed the boundaries with the stunts. We did certain things that we shouldn’t have but it looked good on camera. At one point, Ashley Walters [who was directing] jumped out of his seat to check we were OK. Me and Stephen just looked at each other and smiled. I went to Glastonbury that night and all weekend, I was still finding bits of blood in my hair.”
Graham often uses a characters’ shoes and walk as a way into inhabiting them. Nelson-Joyce’s method is musical: “I start by building a playlist, then go out walking, listening to it. But I’ve robbed a little something off Stephen as well. He always gets an aftershave for each character he plays. Now I do that too. In This City Is Ours, I wear Prada – an expensive fragrance for a successful guy. Johnno in Time wore Joop! Little things like that help add layers.”
That Prada-scented creation is Michael Kavanagh, trusted right-hand man of crime boss Ronnie Phelan (Sean Bean). As Ronnie eyes retirement, a bloody battle erupts over who will inherit his empire: the quietly ambitious Michael or Ronnie’s hot-headed son Jamie (Jack McMullen). “It’s like Shakespeare or Succession. Who’s next in line? Who will you side with?” Further complications come from the fact that Michael is head-over-heels in love with girlfriend Diana (Hannah Onslow). The couple are trying to conceive via IVF. Fatherhood could put an early end to his criminal career.
“It was the complexity of Michael that appealed to me,” says Nelson-Joyce. “He’s trying to spin plates and balance these two worlds but he becomes more torn and conflicted. He does bad things but his relationship with Diana humanises him and shows his softer side. When I read the script, I knew I had to play him. I fought for this role for eight months. It’s the scouse way. We don’t give up. You get so many knockbacks in acting but our attitude is: ‘I’ll fucking prove you wrong!’”
The show has been dubbed “the scouse Sopranos”. As Nelson-Joyce says: “It’s an honour even to be mentioned in the same breath as one of the greatest shows ever made.” The eight-part series makes his home city look epic and cinematic. “Everyone I’ve spoken to is proud of it. People stop me in the street all the time, which is lovely. We shot one scene in a restaurant and since the episode aired, it’s been booked out. You can’t get a table for the next four months. That’s the beauty of Liverpool. We back our own. Between the show and the footie, there’s a real buzz around town at the minute.”
Sean Bean is renowned for dying on screen, with “death reels” of his various demises online. Spoiler warning, but Nelson-Joyce becomes the latest in a long line of actors to kill him. “I know,” he sighs. “I bullied him in Time and here I kill him, which is ironic because I love Sean. He pulled me aside early in filming and said ‘You’re leading a show for the first time. It’s a lot of pressure and you’ll probably feel it at some point. When you do, just call me.’ I’d describe Sean as a working-class gentleman.”
On the Bafta-winning Time, Nelson-Joyce got to work with another of his heroes: screenwriter Jimmy McGovern, who he once sent fanmail. “Growing up, I didn’t know any actors or see it as a career option. But I related to Jimmy’s work, especially The Street, so I wrote him an email, telling him he was my favourite writer. Years later, when I met him on-set, it was the only time I’ve ever been starstruck. My voice went all high-pitched and I darted away, embarrassed.”
McGovern, Graham and Bean are kindred spirits in their championing of working-class talent. Nelson-Joyce is a prime example. “It’s about opportunities,” he says. “To get into drama school, you have to travel down to London and pay to audition. That becomes a barrier. When subjects like drama and music are pulled off the secondary school syllabus, it’s even worse. If our industry lacks diverse voices, we all miss out. Working-class shows – and I don’t mean poverty porn, I mean authentic stories with heart and soul – can become global hits. Look at Peaky Blinders. Look at the impact of Adolescence. Drama is important. It can change things.”
Nelson-Joyce had an additional barrier to overcome. He left school without any qualifications, not realising he was dyslexic. It was his English teacher Miss Griffiths – on whom he admits harbouring a crush – who spotted his performing potential (Nelson-Joyce was the class joker and mimic) and encouraged him to study acting at City of Liverpool college. “It wasn’t until I got to drama school that I got diagnosed,” he recalls. “I was performing a speech for a play and the director noticed that I wasn’t picking up the punctuation. The school put me forward for assessment, which found that I was severely dyslexic.”
It hasn’t held him back in his burgeoning career. “You learn ways around it. I find it easier to read off paper, rather than online. Coloured paper helps. I highlight the text, annotate it and break it down. It might take me a little longer but it’s just something I have to crack on with.”
In Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, he appears in the episode Plaything as the detective who interrogates and eventually assaults a murder suspect, played by Peter Capaldi. “It feels like I beat everyone up!” laughs Nelson-Joyce. “I’m going to get filled in one day, just shopping in town.” Does he fear being typecast as a bad boy? “I know how I appear, first and foremost. I’ve always had one of those faces where people think I’m looking for trouble. Secondly, they’re interesting parts. I’ve played some nasty villains but my job as an actor is to understand them. I don’t worry about typecasting because I’m doing a job I love. The time to worry is when you’re not working. Anything else is champagne problems.”
That distinctive face also meant he was cast as dancer Bez in a Happy Mondays biopic. The project was put on hold during the pandemic and is yet to return to production. “Bez was horrified by being played by a scouser,” laughs Nelson-Joyce. “We’ve met a few times and he’s an absolutely lovely bloke.” Also on his to-do list is a drama about male suicide. “It’s an epidemic. The biggest killer of men under 45. I’d love to sit down with someone like Jack Thorne or Jimmy McGovern and create something looking into why.”
First, though, comes the killer climax of This City Is Ours. “Prepare to be on the edge of your seat,” he grins. “It’s a helluva ending. We don’t know yet but I hope there’ll be a second season. The show deserves it.” There would be uproar in the Anfield dressing room if it’s denied.
