'Adolescence’ Star Owen Cooper Reacts to Emmy Buzz for 1st Acting Role (Exclusive)

“Adolescence” stars Stephen Graham and Owen Cooper hit an FYSee L.A. event for the heart-wrenching crime drama, which has become one of the biggest shows on Netflix. 

“Extra” spoke with Stephen and Owen about the Emmy buzz for the series!

Even though this was Owen’s very first acting role, his name has been thrown in the mix for a possible Emmy nomination.

The 15-year-old said, “That’s, like, next-level. This time last year, I didn’t know what I’d be doing. It’s just crazy how fast it’s come around. It’s an honor to be even in that conversation of an Emmy.”

Despite all the positive reception, Owen is staying humble, saying, “I just focus on what I've gotta do at the moment, you know? I’m focusing on school, so that’s just all outside noise for me at the minute."

Stephen raved about his co-star, who plays his son, saying, "This absolute genius, what he does is he's just right in the moment, you know what I mean? He dives in and he's fearless."

Reflecting on scenes they shared together, Stephen shared, "You bring that energy to the table and then you just counter that. You bounce off each other — that’s what it is about, it’s about sharing that energy and sharing those moments.”

Owen confessed feeling a bit out of his comfort zone, but praised the cast and crew for helping him through any doubts he may have had. He commented, “With the help of Stephen and everyone around me, it was easy.”

As for how they developed their father-son bond for the series, Graham recalled a day when they were doing a workshop with a few young actors who were auditioning for the part.

He said of Owen, "I'll be completely honest, he just had an energy and he had a quality about him, do you know what I mean? And I looked him straight in the eyes and I'll never forget it, I just said, 'Love, from now on, I'm your dad and you're my son.'" And he just looked at me straight in the eye and he went, 'Okay.'"

Stephen continued, "Then we did a little improvisation, and it was just there straight away… We didn’t have to work on it at all.”

In real life, Stephen has two kids. He said, “I just used a lot of that, my kind of love for them, trying to bring it into what we were doing together.”

Graham’s son Alfie was even there on set one day, which helped him with emotional scenes with Cooper. He said, “My Alfie was there and that kind of, for me, that gave it something different, and then there’s a moment where in the police room, where he’s getting strip-searched and obviously, you know, that didn’t happen within the context, so we had a curtain there and all I was doing was visualizing our Alfie in that situation.”

He emphasized, “I think that’s what acting is, you use a lot of your own experiences and bring them to it.”

Stephen is a co-creator on the show and discussed shooting one of the scenes in one take, saying, “We did a feature called ‘Boiling Point,’ so the concept was already there… We did the short, so we always knew it was going to be done in one shot, and that was basically where it then came from.”