“I Would Love Leonardo DiCaprio’s Career”: Owen Cooper On What’s Next After His Star-Making Turn In Adolescence

Like all parents, Nell Frizzell was both gripped and appalled by Netflix’s Adolescence—with much of the show’s power derived from Owen Cooper’s devastating and extraordinary performance as 13-year-old Jamie Miller. Here, she meets the BAFTA-tipped Warrington native to discuss getting into the performing arts, what can be done to protect vulnerable teenagers, and how on earth he learnt so many pages of lines in a fortnight.

After watching the first episode of the new Netflix hit Adolescence, I found myself in my son’s bedroom, climbing into bed next to him as he tried to read a book about the solar system. I defy any thinking, feeling person—let alone a parent—to not come away shaken by the show’s depiction of one boy’s unnoticed descent into the most toxic corners of the manosphere. As someone with a son, I felt both vulnerable and protective—hence my sliding beneath his duvet. So what can the show’s breakout star, Owen Cooper, teach me about modern masculinity, creativity and how best to protect my own boy?

“I think everyone must have a creative side to them,” says Cooper, speaking to me from his hotel room on a Friday night. “Not a lot of working-class 14-year-olds do drama lessons and get out of their comfort zone in that way. But the decision you have to make is: do you want to be bland, and try to fit in with everybody else, or do you want to do the things you want to do?” I tell him that, in the show, it seems that art—even just the simple act of drawing—is gently put forward as an alternative to the pressures of social media. “One hundred per cent,” Cooper agrees. “And if you’re worried or get embarrassed, just know that everyone gets embarrassed. If I hadn’t let myself be embarrassed, then I wouldn’t be here. None of this would have happened.”

I tell Cooper that, as a working-class boy growing up on a council estate in East London, my husband had joined the Anna Scher Theatre—not to act, but because he wanted to learn stunts. “Ah, I’d love to do stunts,” says Cooper. Can we expect a big action film from him sometime soon, then? “Probably not like Tom Cruise,” Cooper smiles. “I’m scared enough going on roller coasters, let alone hanging off the side of a plane. But jumping off the side of a cliff into the water? I could probably do that.”

Since filming Adolescence, Cooper has already done a TV comedy, Film Club, starring Aimee Lou Wood (“probably one of the funniest people I’ve ever met”), which is due to air on the BBC later this year, and is currently filming Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights. “This week I’ve been in four different hotels,” he tells me. “This is probably the best one because it has Netflix on the TV and the pillows are really nice.” When I tell Cooper that people are likening him to a young Leonardo DiCaprio, he looks delighted. “I would love Leonardo DiCaprio’s career. And Robert De Niro’s. And Al Pacino’s. Those films like Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Godfather were all before my time. But Wolf of Wall Street, Django Unchained, Inception and Shutter Island… I don’t think Leonardo DiCaprio’s in a bad film.”

It’s not just the content of Adolescence that’s captured people’s attention but also the technical brilliance of its filming. Each hour-long episode was shot in a single take, meaning the action unspools in real time. For the audience, there’s zero let-up. How on earth did Cooper learn such long scripts? Surely there were more pages than you’d have to memorise for an English GCSE? “‘I still question how I did that, to be honest,” Cooper admits. “I had two weeks to really learn them and I was in my room every single day just going mad on that script. There was so much highlighting you could barely read the lines.”

Did he come up with a backstory for Jamie, I wonder? A theory of what happened and why, in order to give such a striking performance? “I think what Steven and Jack have done brilliantly is that Jamie is just a normal kid,” says Cooper. “You know? His family, everything. That shows that the power of social media can change anyone. It doesn’t matter what class you are, how you look; it can happen to anyone. Jamie is a normal kid getting harassed on social media and so his head spirals into stuff. He commits this horrendous act that changes his life, and his family’s life, and everyone around him, forever.” Does he, Cooper, think that we need to completely reconsider how we treat phones, especially for young people? “Some kids are getting phones at, like, seven years old. I think I got my first one at 11 or 12; it’s high school when that addiction to phones really comes in, because it’s in your blazer all the time.”

Advice on childrearing isn’t something I’d normally solicit from a 15-year-old boy on Zoom on a Friday night, but Cooper is clearly a thoughtful, considerate and level-headed person. So I go for it: What can I do to make my son kind and safe? Maybe even happy? “My advice for parents is: you can’t keep an eye on your children at all times,” answers Cooper. “So don’t let them have social media until they’re older; stick to the advised age restrictions. And then you’ve got to check social media and see what’s going on with them. Because bad things are happening, clearly, all over England.”

After talking to Cooper, I go downstairs, to have fish and chips with my son. Would he ever like to join a drama club, I ask? “Nah,” he replies. “I just like reading about space.”

This article was originally published on British Vogue.