Kyriacou was born in Larnaca into a Greek Cypriot family. His father was a truck driver and the owner of the family shop, while his mother was a seamstress. As a child, he frequently visited the cinema with a predilection for films featuring bodybuilder and actor Steve Reeves. From the age of eight, he helped his mother in the shop until the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Aged 15, Kyriacou fled to England and settled in Tottenham, London. Isolated from his family in Cyprus, he started working shortly after his arrival in England and continued his secondary school education.