Movies

Stephen Graham’s Heartbreaking Inspiration for Netflix’s Adolescence

BBG News

Stephen Graham shared the two heartrending true events that sparked the creation of his latest Netflix success, Adolescence. He mentioned these incidents left him with a deep sense of pain.

The drama centres on 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper), who is accused of murdering a schoolgirl, and is the brainchild of Stephen, who plays the boy’s father.

Actress Ashley Walters is given the role of DI Luke Bascombe in a highly praised four-part television series, which was filmed in a distinctive way using nearly continuous single takes lasting approximately an hour each.

In the first two episodes, we delve into the initial stages of Jamie’s arrest and track the relentless pursuit by DI Bascombe and DS Frank (played by Faye Marsay) to uncover the truth behind the stabbing incident.

In his role as an executive producer, Stephen, aged 51, revealed that it was the rising issue of knife violence in the UK that inspired the concept behind the show, which aired on Thursdays.

Joining his wife Hannah Walters in chatting to Chris Moyles on Radio X, the actor said: ‘Okay, let’s get this serious nature of the show out the way, and then we can have some fun, with all due respect. 

I came across an article detailing a tragic incident where a young boy took the life of another young girl. Reading about it left me with a chilling sensation.

‘And then a couple of months later, there was a piece on the news, and it was about a young boy who’d stabbed a young girl to death, and if I’m really honest with you, they hurt my heart. 

These two occurrences took place at opposite extremes of the nation, leaving me puzzled and wondering, “What’s the reason behind this? Why is it unfolding this way?

‘I believe that anyone with even a small sense of empathy could observe such a situation and ponder, ‘What is transpiring here? What are the conditions of our current society that have led us to this point?’ It’s not merely because I am a father that I think this way.’

Stephen added that the spate of stabbings was a sharp contrast to the world he grew up in.

He stated that we are moving into an era where multiple instances have occurred involving young males, whom I will refer to as such, taking the lives of young women through stabbings.

‘And, you know, that beautiful saying, “It takes a takes a village to raise a child”, I just wanted to create something that kind of looked at it from that perspective, but also looked at it like, look, maybe we are all slightly accountable in some way, be that parents, be that school, be that government, community, society. 

‘And now, let’s be completely honest, when I was a kid, when we were kids, we didn’t have these kind of things. But today, the internet is as much of a teacher and a parent to our children as we can be. Do you know what I mean? And that was kind of where it came from.’

On Thursday, Adolescence co-star Ashley said he ‘f***ing regretted’ saying yes to his hero Stephen after gruelling hours on the set of the Netflix show. 

The actor, 42, said: ‘Regardless of what the job was going to be, I would have said yes anyway. You never say no to Stephen Graham.

‘He has a heart of gold, he’s one of the purest guys in this industry, as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve encountered numerous individuals during my career, but not everyone shares his qualities. Finding colleagues who I truly appreciate and admire is quite uncommon in this profession.

‘So when you get the opportunity, you do it. And that’s what it was.’

The whole series took three months to film. Each episode took three weeks to complete, with the first week devoted to script runthrough, the second week to technical rehearsals, and the third to filming.

To create an uninterrupted hour-long TV episode, they had to film several different takes.

The cast and crew filmed 10 single-take versions over episode one of the series, and ended up using take two. While it wasn’t until take 14 when they got it perfect for episode two.

But Ashley had not anticipated quite how gruelling the unique filmmaking method would be, and humorously confessed: ‘When I got there… I f****** regretted it.’

He continued: ‘It was the hardest thing in the world. No, no it was. I was so insecure. I was so insecure, and it’s a lot. I had to learn the whole script.

In that initial broadcast, I had quite a bit to share, and much of it was under your guidance. There were numerous instances where we delved into police language and terminology, which may not be familiar to everyone.

Co-stars and critics alike have praised Owen, 15, for his chilling performance, and Stephen was so impressed at the young British actor’s first audition, that he’s since revealed he turned to co-writer Jack Thorne when Owen left the room and said ‘I think that’s him’.

And Owen recently opened up about how Stephen has supported his career amid filming. The seasoned actor recommended his agent to the teen star, who came to watch a bit of episode one.

‘I got Wuthering Heights from that!’ Owen revealed in Variety. ‘But it’s been going really well. I’ve really enjoyed it. Obviously it not one-shot anymore! So I’m getting used to that. But it’s been amazing. Emerald’s lovely.’

Owen mentioned that Stephen frequently made sure to check up on him while filming especially challenging emotional scenes, even having a psychologist available on set.

Elsewhere, Stephen has branded the discovery of Owen, Adolescence’s ‘biggest achievement’.

‘We always want to try and create opportunities for people who may not normally have those opportunities,’ he told The Independent.

Starting out, our intention was clear: we aimed to hire someone inexperienced, similar to how we found Tommo, a relative newcomer, back in the day [referring to Thomas Turgoose from This is England].

‘We wanted someone who didn’t have a lot of experience, but we knew that what we were doing and what we were trying to ask this young person to do was cosmic in many ways. 

‘It’s a huge undertaking, but we cast Owen, who had no experience, he’d done a couple of little theatre workshops, and he was just starting to do little bits in school.’

Christopher Stevens from The Mail has enthusiastically praised the latest crime drama, awarding it a flawless five-star rating out of five.

He said: ‘It’s effectively a live performance without retakes.

Occasionally, it lends an atmosphere of a rotating theater stage, making it seem like the events unfold there. However, this effect is consistently striking and never takes attention away from the main event.

‘The strong supporting cast includes Mark Stanley as a solicitor well out of his depth, but the most exceptional performances come from the teenagers – especially Owen Cooper as Jamie and Fatima Bojang as the dead girl’s bereaved best friend.

‘Adolescence paints our schools, police and an entire generation in a grimly unforgiving light. Watching it is a gruelling experience.

‘But no drama has ever depicted the nightmare of knife crime better.’

All episodes of Adolescence are available to stream on Netflix now.

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2025-03-17 20:58

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