James Steerforth Oliver Milburn Steerforth, David's school friend and childhood hero, is handsome and charismatic but embittered by his own self-loathing. When David introduces him to the Peggotty family, he can have no idea that this will lead to tragedy, separation, and death. "Great Expectations was the first Dickens I read, when I was 13 -- it was a bit of a trial," says actor Oliver Milburn, now 27. "When I picked up David Copperfield again, I didn't know what to expect. But I was amazed to find how modern it was; modern, funny, sad, very readable." Milburn says that Steerforth is a natural charmer. "He is kind of quarter devil and three-quarters amazing. His crowning glory is the story of his time in Yarmouth. And in the book it says he was carried back through the town with great reverence because local people knew him. He did charm people. But he has this incredible, lackadaisical life where he sees no wrong in seizing the moment and taking it to its conclusion, even if that conclusion means the ruin of someone else's life. Without his mother's influence on him, I think he would have been flawless. It's the way he has been brought up to feel superior and removed from the vast majority of the human race."