A few months have passed sinceNetflix’s riveting crime dramaAdolescencewas released, and audiences are still struggling to get over the distressing story of the teenage boy who did the unthinkable. It was a well-written series, featuring a unique visual style and delivering impressive performances by its cast. In the lead,Owen Cooper, whose range was key to achieving such a complicated character as Jamie Miller, the boy accused of a horrific crime. The young star has been receivingwidespread acclaim for his performancein the show, and while he’s relatively new in the entertainment industry, he always dreamed of being in the spotlight–especially after he saw one particular performance by the MCU’sTom Holland.
Cooper sat down withIndieWireto talk about his sudden success with the crime miniseries he co-starred in with Stephen Graham, Erin Doherty, Ashley Walters and Christine Tremarco, among others. “The first thing that came quite quick to me in drama lessons was getting out of the comfort zone,” Cooper says about his education in a drama school.Adolescenceis his first major gig, and while he understands how upsetting the subject is, at his young age he believes that it is a rite of passage for every actor to do things they don’t want to do: “I don’t think I would’ve been able to do [it] at all without the drama lessons and the coaching and stuff like that … Every actor has to do something they don’t want to do in a scene … It doesn’t matter if it’s embarrassing, or it makes you look like an absolute idiot, but I’ll just do it and whatever comes off it, comes off it.”
‘Adolescence’ Director Reveals That Young Star “Lost It” When Shooting an Episode
‘Adolescence’ director Philip Barantini speaks about Owen Cooper’s meltdown while shooting a particularly distressing episode.
When talking about his influences, Cooper mentions Tom Holland as the one figure who inspired him to become an actor. However, the performance which left a lasting impression on him was Holland’s breakout role before he wore the Spider-Man suit. For Cooper, it was all about Holland’s performance inthe disaster drama,The Impossible:
“I think it was Tom Holland in ‘The Impossible,’ that I thought that he was really good and that I wanted to be like him and I wanted to be doing what he’s doing. Tom Holland was the first actor I saw and was like, ‘Oh, he’s really good.’ When I was a kid, I watched actors as characters, I didn’t watch them as people.”
The young actor also talked about the audition process for the Netflix show, which required something he had never done before: an in-person audition. However, when he did a chemistry session with co-star Stephen Graham, Cooper knew he was the right one for the show: “Me and Stephen just clicked, instantly just clicked. It was like an improv-y workshop thing. As soon as I met him, he looked at me in the eyes and said, ‘From now on, you’re my son, and I’m your dad.’ I just can’t imagine that I’m in that situation, because I’ve never even been in a police station before. So it was quite difficult, but it just came to me.”
‘Adolescence’s Owen Cooper Is a Star on the Rise
Owen Cooper has quickly become one of the most famous young actors in today’s entertainment industry. His breakthrough performance in thewildly successfulAdolescencewas essential in landing him roles in the upcoming series written byThe White Lotus’Aimee Lou Wood,Film Club. Cooper will next be seen playing the young version of Heathcliff inEmerald Fennell’s modern adaptation ofWuthering Heights. When asked about which role he would like to play next, Cooper says he doesn’t have one, but he names a few directors he would like to work with:
“I don’t know if [I have] a certain role [in mind], but I would love to work with certain people, like David Fincher,Christopher Nolan— which is a big shout-out —Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino. All of those directors, I would love to work with, and the big actors I want to work with too, because I can learn from them. I don’t want to work with them because they’re massive and famous, I want to learn off of them and work with them.”
Adolescence
