What would you do if your teenage son was accused of murder? That’s one of several questions at the heart of the new crime drama Adolescence.
Streaming now, Adolescence is a four-part limited series starring Stephen Graham (Boiling Point, Bodies), and each episode is filmed in one unflinching and continuous shot. The gripping story unfolds in real time as the main characters — from the central family to the detectives investigating the crime — search for answers in the wake of a shocking tragedy. Who is actually responsible? Why did it happen? Could it have been prevented?
“One of our aims was to ask, ‘What is happening to our young men these days, and what are the pressures they face from their peers, from the internet, and from social media?’ ” Graham told Netflix. “And the pressures that come from all of those things are as difficult for kids here as they are the world over.”
Check out some photos from the psychological drama below and read to find out more about the series.
Ashley Walters as Detective Inspector Bascombe, Faye Marsay as Detective Sergeant Frank, in Adolescence
Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller in Adolescence
Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller, Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, in Adolescence
Erin Doherty as Briony Ariston in Adolescence
Ashley Walters as Detective Inspector Bascombe in Adolescence
Christine Tremarco as Manda Miller, Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller, in Adolescence
Erin Doherty as Briony Ariston in Adolescence
Amari Jayden Bacchus as Adam Bascombe, Ashley Walters as Detective Inspector Bascome, in Adolescence
Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller in Adolescence
Christine Tremarco as Manda Miller, Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller, in Adolescence
Erin Doherty as Briony Ariston and Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller in Adolescence
Ashley Walters as Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe in Adolescence
Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller and Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller in Adolescence
Christine Tremarco as Manda Miller and Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller in Adolescence
Ashley Walters as Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe in Adolescence
Mark Stanley as Paul Barlow, Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, and Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller in Adolescence
Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller in Adolescence
What is Adolescence about?
Adolescence tells the story of how a family’s world is turned upside down when 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) is arrested for the murder of a teenage girl who goes to his school.
“We could have made a drama about gangs and knife crime, or about a kid whose mother is an alcoholic or whose father is a violent abuser,” said Graham. “Instead, we wanted you to look at this family and think, ‘My God. This could be happening to us!’ And what’s happening here is an ordinary family’s worst nightmare.”
Can I watch the Adolescence trailer?
Yes, watch the tense moment when Jamie is arrested and get a glimpse of the harrowing aftermath in the trailer at the top of this page.
Who is in the cast of Adolescence?
- Owen Cooper as accused teenage murderer Jamie Miller
- Adolescence co-creator Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller, Jamie’s father
- Ashley Walters (Top Boy) as Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe
- Erin Doherty (The Crown) as Briony Ariston, the clinical psychologist assigned to Jamie’s case
- Faye Marsay (Game of Thrones)
- Christine Tremarco (The Responder)
- Mark Stanley (Happy Valley)
- Jo Hartley (After Life)
- And newcomer Amélie Pease
Who is behind Adolescence?
Adolescence is co-created and written by Graham and Jack Thorne (The Swimmers, Joy), and directed by Philip Barantini, who employed a similar continuous one-shot style in the 2021 BAFTA- and BIFA-nominated film Boiling Point. Graham also starred in Boiling Point.
The series is executive produced by Mark Herbert and Emily Feller for Warp Films; Graham and Hannah Walters for Matriarch Productions; Thorne for One Shoe Films; Barantini for It’s All Made Up Productions; and Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner, Dede Gardner, and Nina Wolarsky for Plan B Entertainment. Carina Sposato (Plan B Entertainment), Peter Balm, and Niall Shamma (Warp Films) serve as co-executive producers, and the producer is Jo Johnson.
Is Adolescence based on a true story?
While Jamie’s story, specifically, isn’t based on a real person or event, the idea for the series did spring from reports that co-creator Graham had heard about on the news, of young boys being involved in knife crimes.
“There was an incident where a young boy [allegedly] stabbed a girl,” Graham tells Tudum. “It shocked me. I was thinking, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening in society where a boy stabs a girl to death? What’s the inciting incident here?’ And then it happened again, and it happened again, and it happened again. I really just wanted to shine a light on it, and ask, ‘Why is this happening today? What’s going on? How have we come to this?’ ”
Thorne adds that, as the process went on, he, Graham, and Barantini grew fascinated by the question of male rage and started thinking about themselves as men, fathers, partners, and friends, and “questioning with some intensity” who they were as people, and particularly as men. “That is a journey I’ve never gone on as a writer before, and it scared me and excited me because it felt like we had something to say,” says Throne.
What does “filmed in one continuous shot” mean?
“Basically that means we press record on the camera, and we don’t press stop until the very end of the hour,” Barantini told Netflix. “But it’s much more complicated than it sounds. It takes months of preparation and weeks of rehearsals and an incredible team of people to pull it off at every stage, from the script to the locations to the production design to where exactly the camera is going to be able to shoot and from what angle.”
Behind the Scenes of Episode 2
Did they use a drone at the end of Episode 2?
Yes, in the final moments of Episode 2, the team used a drone camera. “The surprising thing was using the technical to free us,” explains co-creator and writer Thorne.
The episode ends with a chase sequence which takes Bascombe (Walters) and one of Jamie’s classmates from the school all the way past the murder site. “The camera was going to travel back on its own back to the school,” says Thorne.
But as director of photography Matthew Lewis points out, there was a danger that that moment would have felt too much like a video game which would “just take the audience away from what the piece is.”
Luckily, Lewis, who previously worked with Barantini on Boiling Point, had a solution. “Phil [Barantini] called me up and he said, ‘Matt and I think we’ve found a way to make the camera fly,” says Thorne. The idea involved attaching the camera to a drone to create what Lewis describes as a “more ethereal” feel.
“It was an example of the technical meeting the story and finding a fusion which is actually better than anything the story had come up with on its own,” says Thorne.
Where was Adolescence filmed?
Much of Adolescence was filmed in Pontefract in the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England.
Casting Cooper in the role of Jamie actually influenced where Adolescence was ultimately shot. “We knew it was going to be set somewhere in the North of England, and we also knew it would be from somewhere around wherever our Jamie was from — in this case near Warrington — because it would have been unfair to make him do an accent,” says Barantini.
Executive producer Mark Herbert suggested filming in studios near Pontefract, at a facility usually used by the music industry as a practice space for bands. “It was a massive, brilliant space, one of the best I’ve worked in, and we were able to build our police station there and also our interview room for Episode 3,” says Barantini. “It became the nerve center of the entire production.”
Most importantly, the studios were near enough to the real locations used in the series that the camera could travel between them in real time.
When is the Adolescence release date?
Watch all four episodes of Adolescence now.
