Adolescence has received unanimous praise from both critics and viewers, many of whom are hailing it as one of the best dramas in years.
Each episode of Netflix’s four-part limited series – created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham – was shot by director Philip Barantini as a one-take, meaning the audience feels as though they’re following the drama in the moment, creating an additional dose of tension.
Actor Owen Cooper, 15, is already being tipped for Baftas victory thanks to his debut performance as Jamie Miller, a boy accused of murder.
The third episode focuses on Jamie and clinical psychologist Briony (Erin Doherty), who has been tasked with completing a pre-trial assessment of the 13-year-old schoolboy.
In an interview with Variety, Doherty said that she was impressed by Cooper, who was 14 at the time of shooting, and suggested there was a shift in his performance from the first to the 11th take, the latter being the one that was used.
“He played that character with such skill because you genuinely did feel for him,” she said. “As Briony, that’s got to be part of the essence of this dynamic; you can’t help but root for him. When she enters the room, she is willing him to be the good guy, and that’s what you see: the breakdown of that.”
She later said that she felt Briony wasn’t aware of what she was in the room with until Owen leaves, “because she had to keep that professional guard up”.
“She knew what she was there for and what line she had to tread,” she continued. “It’s not until he leaves that these moments hit her in the face and she’s able to really digest what has just happened. It is quite frightening, and that was all it was.”
The moment where Jamie goes from childlike innocence to blazing anger was “genuinely scary”, she revealed: “It’s every actor’s dream to get to a place where you forget yourself and you are in this strange reality that you’ve created.
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“It sounds bizarre, but you genuinely do believe it in the moment. If the person opposite you is doing their job and you’re doing yours.”
She added that she was “so proud” of Cooper and how he pushed himself as an actor, as he had previously struggled with becoming “this scary thing, especially with someone he just met. So we really had to work on creating this safe space to let him know that he’s going to be fine.”
Ironically, Cooper recently told Netflix that one of the trickiest things he struggled with in the final takes was the hot chocolate that Briony brings to Owen at the beginning of the episode.
“That was minging that. That was horrible. It wasn’t hot chocolate ‘cause it had to get changed,” he said.
The episode sees Jamie angrily throw the drink on the floor and, according to the actor, “it was making the floor sticky for the cameraman”.
“I remember in one of them it spilt all over the table. I could see people in the cameras that could see into the room like quickly trying to clean it up, so by the time the camera came back in, they had to change it,” he said.
Wincing, Cooper added: “It was disgusting.”
The young actor has received high praise for his performance, including his co-star Graham who calls it “the biggest achievement” of Adolescence.
He has since been cast in the BBC series Film Club, starring White Lotus’s Aimee Lou Wood, and as the young Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights, opposite Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.
