Shane Meadows compares Stephen Graham to Gene Hackman

Shane Meadows says Stephen Graham has a "unique ability", like Gene Hackman or James Cagney, to be "ace in everything".

The director and his writing partner Jack Thorne have reunited with the \'This is England\' star for their new Channel 4 drama \'The Virtues\' - in which he plays Joe, a recovering alcoholic who has stopped drinking, but lost his family in the process - and Shane admits his pal is "exceptional" in the role and he would back him to play any type of character.

He said: "He has that ability to be the scariest thing you\'ve ever seen and also incredibly vulnerable. He\'s got this unique ability, a bit like Gene Hackman or James Cagney, where he always seems to be ace in everything he\'s in and he\'s always so believable.

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"He\'s also able to play such an incredible variety of people. The yardstick is so high with Stephen, he seems to be so strong in every single thing you see him in. But I do feel his performance in this is pretty exceptional."

Shane was also pleased to reunite with Jack on the forthcoming show, and admitted he spent the whole of his first writing project alongside the \'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child\' scribe lying down on a hotel room floor eating chilli dogs.

The director teamed up with the screenwriter for miniseries \'This Is England 86\', \'This Is England 88\' and \'This Is England 90\', and the 46-year-old filmmaker admitted a back injury consigned him to the floor because it was too painful to sit on a chair.

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Shane said: "I\'d hurt my back and couldn\'t sit at a desk for more than five minutes. We\'d hired a hotel room, got them to take the beds out, and put two tables in the middle.

"But like I said, my back was playing up, so we wrote the whole of the first project we worked on together with me lying on the floor with my feet sticking up in the air on a chair.

"I was eating chilli dogs, taking calls, even having naps down there and Jack never batted an eyelid."

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Shane is grateful to Jack for helping him with his TV writing, because penning screenplays alone seemed like an "alien concept" to him.

He said: "I\'ve always had this massive fear of an empty white page. Sat in an empty room, on my tod, trying to write four and a half hours of TV is not my idea of fun.

"All of the other stages of making films or TV are so collaborative that it\'s always seemed like an alien concept to me to write alone.

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"Apart from the fact that I don\'t really see myself as a talented enough writer to create these scripts alone, I\'ve also learnt so much from writing television with Jack.

"It\'s an art form and he\'s been generous enough to take me on as his YTS apprentice and show me the way.

"There was an instant connection when I met him - I was instantly drawn to him as a guy. Absolutely no bullshit, works everyday like it\'s last and he also didn\'t mind the fact that my writing style was a bit wacky when we first started working together."