How 'Adolescence' Risked Their Entire Show on Owen Cooper's Powerful Performance

I am a big fan of TV shows that take risks. There are so many things to watch; you need to differentiate yourself somehow. But when I heard about the TV show Adolescence on Netflix, I was nervous.

What would a show look like that takes on toxic masculinity and social media, whose whole concept rests on a kid carrying the entire dramatic arc?

Well, that kid just walked away with an Emmy, as did others on the show, so I guess it worked!

Casting a 14-year-old Owen Cooper was a big risk, but it ended up becoming the show's greatest strength.

Let's dive in.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

How Do You Cast a Parent's Nightmare?

Show creators, Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, wrote a 4-part story about a 13-year-old boy arrested for the brutal murder of his classmate.

It's one of those shows that needs that caliber of talent in order to get greenlit. And even then, it needed to find its kid.

I loved how the story played with genre. It's not a whodunit. The show is a "why-dunit." It’s a deep, agonizing dive into toxic masculinity, social media, and the psychological rot of modern life.

One that feels all too relevant now.

But like I said at the top, if you get this casting wrong, and the show isn't just bad. It’s unwatchable. It's exploitative. It’s a complete and total failure.

And they somehow got it right.

The Gamble

So, you have this impossible-to-cast role. What do you do? I would say conventional wisdom is you'd get a list of kids you've seen in other shows and then parse out their avails and cost.

But Adolescence did something even crazier, they cast someone totally new.

Owen Cooper had zero professional credits. They found him at a drama school after looking at over 500 tapes.

First, that speaks to his talent, but also the dedication the show's producers and writers had in finding the right person and not just casting anyone to make it happen.

Even crazier, Cooper is part of several landmark episodes on this series, one done in one take, and another where he is interrogated and has to carry an hour himself, in one virtuoso performance.

What's the Lesson Here?

The writers didn't water down the character to make him easier to cast. They wrote the most difficult version of the character they could, and then trusted they would find the right person.

That kind of work is rarely done, but it is so important. And it's not just that it paid off in Emmys, but that it started the career of someone new as well.

I love that this show was all about hard work and collaborating with people to make the vision come to the screen. I am sure there were tweaks and concessions made during shooting days, but putting the legwork into writing something deep and then using the time to find the right people to execute puts you in the best position for a payoff.

Summing It All Up

Adolescence is a reminder that the biggest risks can sometimes deliver the biggest rewards. They risked their entire show on Owen Cooper, and he delivered.

Let me know in the comments.