He is making it his niche role.
Salford actor Stephen Lord will soon be appearing once more ‘a charismatic wrong’un’ as he calls it.
The Langworthy estate-raised accent and brooding good looks will again transform into pure menace.
He has just appeared on TV as Stuart Callaghan in the dark detective series Marcella, starring Anna Friel, and directed by Hans Rosenfeldt, who was also behind the Swedish series, The Bridge.
Callaghan was a Manc hiding his multiple sclerosis from his partner while dipping into dodgy weird deals.
Now he is to play Mikey Finnegan, 40, a sink estate loan shark and groomer, in a new film, The Violators.
It will be premiered at Manchester’s Home cinema complex on June 17th.
Written and directed by Warrington-born Helen Walsh it stars Lauren McQueen as Shelly
Shelly, 15, roams the estate and docklands, as a petty thief. She has been rehoused after testifying against her abusive father, who also pimped her.
Stephen said: “I was attracted immediately to the part as Helen Walsh has written it. I read her book Brass, about a female sex addict which was a great story getting to the underbelly of Warrington and the Merseyside area.
“I also read her book, Once Upon A Time In England, so straight away she had hooked me in.
“In the Violators the character Shelly has the odds against her, is from a broken home, struggling. I knew that world, coming from Langworthy.
“My character is a bit of a wrong’un, petty criminal, pawn shop owner, who takes a shine to Shelly, and this relationship starts evolving. The question is - is he helping her or not.
“The situation is a murky space, where she is under the age of consent. The story is done from a female perspective.
“It has done well at film festivals and I would love people to get behind it. I do believe a local film, and local stories are as relevant and worth watching as, say X Men.”
In Violators, Rachel, played by Brogan Ellis, is a 17 year-old from the posh part of town who has a history with Mikey, and becomes obsessed with Shelly when she sees her flirting with Mikey.
The release on early parole of Shelly’s father forces her to make a choice which will change the fate of all three of them forever.
Helen said: “With Shelly and The Violators, as with my novels, I didn’t want to be constrained by the pessimism of an entirely naturalistic approach.
“All of my novels are dominated by strong anti-heroines, most of them with a free-wheeling, active sexuality. I do not write victims.”
All of the scenes in the film were shot in and around Birkenhead.
Helen said: “Once or twice drug dealers chased us off. Another time we were escorted off a notorious estate by a police Armed Response Unit.”
