LONDON — A one-shot is a notoriously difficult filmmaking technique to do well. It requires a perfect coordination of cast, crew and camera, without the chance for any mistakes. In fact, making a film or a TV series as a true “oner” is almost never done. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Stephen Graham, whose new Netflix series “Adolescence” premiering Thursday features four one-shot episodes — a masterful feat that lends itself to the taut, emotionally-complex storytelling.
The series, about a 13-year-old British boy who is arrested for murdering a female classmate, owes a debt to Graham’s 2021 film “Boiling Point,” another one-shot effort helmed by “Adolescence” director Philip Barantini. Graham and Barantini made “Boiling Point” first in 2019 as a 22-minute short and then as a feature, which went on to earn four BAFTA nominations.
“We found this wonderful little way of meticulously improvising each moment and getting it really right,” Graham, 51, remembers, speaking from Netflix’s London office in February. “We came up with this format, me and Phil, together. Cut to the BAFTAs where I’m up for best actor alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.”
It was on the way to that BAFTA ceremony that Graham pitched Barantini the idea to make a limited series centered on the spate of violent knife crime in the U.K., a horrific trend that reached a fever pitch last summer when 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana murdered three young girls at a dance studio in Southport, a seaside town in England. Even before that, Graham encountered numerous similar incidents on the news, most involving teenage boys killing teenage girls.
“I remember thinking, ‘What’s happening? What going on with society for this to be happening?’ ” Graham says. “It’s not a one-off incident. It’s shocking. And it’s harrowing for us as a nation and as a society to digest. I had this idea about wanting to bring that issue into the social consciousness with the format and the style of the one-shot that Phil and I had developed.”
Speaking later over the phone, Barantini says Graham came up with every episode as they were riding in the car. “Although there was an initial, ‘Are we really going to do this again?’ it made sense,” he says. “For me, the one-shot take can’t ever be the main attraction. It has to be secondary to the story and also to provide something for the story.”
Stephen Graham, far right, as Eddie Miller in “Adolescence.” Owen Cooper plays his 13-year-old son Jamie, who has been accused of murdering a classmate.
(Courtesy of Netflix )
“Adolescence,” which Graham and his wife Hannah Walters produced with their Matriarch Productions, opens with the arrest of Jamie Miller (newcomer Owen Cooper) at his family’s modest home. After armed officers in tactical gear carry him away, the audience stays with Jamie as he is processed at the local police station and questioned by two detectives, Luke Bascombe (Ashley Walters) and Misha Frank (Faye Marsay). Graham plays Jamie’s father Eddie and Christine Tremarco plays his mother Manda, both of whom struggle to comprehend the chaotic situation. The subsequent three episodes jump forward in time. In the second, the detectives attempt to interview Jamie’s friends and other students at his school; in the third, he has a tense conversation with a psychologist (Erin Doherty). The final episode grapples with the effect Jamie’s incarceration has on his family, particularly Eddie, who blames himself.
The series marks Graham’s first credit as a writer. He tapped screenwriter Jack Thorne to capture his ideas, with the pair collaborating on the characters and the arc of the story. Graham is quick to give Thorne credit for the depth of the scenes and for on-the-nose details like online incel culture, although it was Graham’s directive for Episode 3 to feel like “Jack Thorne doing a David Mamet play.”
“I don’t class myself as a writer,” Graham admits. “But I know what I can do and what I can bring to the table. Jack really pulled this out of my head and he gave it this life and added so much more on top of it. It’s very poignant. I feel like we caught the zeitgeist.”
Although Graham and Barantini were well-practiced in creating extended shots from “Boiling Point,” which was later continued in a BBC series, “Adolescence” proved to be a specific challenge. They had to establish a process to ensure there was enough opportunity to both rehearse and to try new things while shooting For each episode, the cast would spend one week rehearsing on location, one week incorporating the camera movements into the rehearsal and one week shooting two takes per day, with a total of 10 takes per episode.
“We had Jack there during rehearsal so we could really analyze the script,” Graham says. “And we were never just in a room. We were always on location and instantly what that does is it makes the script come alive.”
“It was about building it up in layers to create this muscle memory for the actors, so they know exactly where they need to be,” Barantini adds.
“I don’t class myself as a writer,” Graham says about his work on “Adolescence.” “But I know what I can do and what I can bring to the table.”
(Sophia Spring/For The Times)
Shooting the episodes in one take required cinematographer Matt Lewis and camera operator Lee David Brown to work in tandem. They passed the camera between them to ensure continuity and everything was choreographed with exact precision, including how to transition between locations seamlessly and how to move characters in and out of cars. The second episode culminates with a chase sequence into a drone shot — an impressive feat that took several tries to get right.
“It was like a ballet, like a beautiful dance,” Graham says of the collaborative effort on set. “There was a lovely fluidity of movement to it. The process is very engrossing as a performer. And it’s unique. We don’t get the opportunity to do it, but it’s the most amazing experience to do as an actor.”
The actor says he practices meditation in his daily life, but he’s never achieved anything like the state of zen he found himself in during the extended takes on “Adolescence.”
“You’re so immersed into it,” he says. “You rehearse for that whole week and you have it locked. The words and everything are there, but you know that you can be free within that. And then the movement becomes second nature. By the week of shooting you could just dive in. The beauty of it is once [Phil] says ‘Action!’ you don’t come out of it until he says ‘Cut.’ I was so present and so in the moment of being.”
Episode 3 was shot first, not because its single location would be easier, but because the director wanted Cooper to feel at ease. Graham tapped Doherty to play the psychologist who interviews Jamie after working with her on Hulu’s Victorian boxing drama “A Thousand Blows,” which Matriarch Productions also produced. Doherty says despite the necessary preparation, there was an ease on set that allowed the actors to explore a sensibility that came from Graham’s “generosity of spirit.”
“Everyone was so brilliant at letting us just play and find it organically,” Doherty says. “It never felt technical for the actors, which I think is a real testament to their understanding of how we work and how to get the best performances out of people.”
She adds of Graham, “He wants it to be the best that it can be, and everyone benefits from that and everyone steps up because he’s there and he’s asking that of himself. It makes you want to be the best version of yourself.”
“Adolescence” is Cooper’s TV debut. The actor, who comes from the north of England, like Jamie, was cast out of nearly 500 teenage boys and brought a real-life sensibility to the character. Although Cooper didn’t have anything to compare the experience with, he found it relatively easy to imagine himself as Jamie. It helped that Stephen endeavored to make everything “comfortable,” including having a child psychologist available on set for younger cast members.
“He was amazing to work with,” Cooper says of Graham. “He gave me a lot of advice. In one scene when the camera [wasn’t on us] he scuffed me up by the neck and said, ‘You’re never going to see your friends again! You’re never going to see your mom!’ He went on and on and it was genius. It really got me. I was actually scared.”
Graham cast himself as Eddie, a working class everyman faced with an unthinkable reality. He was fascinated by the complexity of the relationship between parents and a violent child — something that is often discussed after school shootings in the U.S.
Christine Tremarco and Stephen Graham play the parents of Jamie, who can’t help but blame themselves.
(Courtesy of Netflix )
“We all think the same thing: You instantly blame the parents,” he says. “When I was coming up with this concept, I thought, ‘What if it’s not in this particular case?’ I wanted to look at that aspect of it, and I wanted to take away all of the things that I’d seen before. The dad is not violent, the mom is not an alcoholic, he’s not been abused or molested. How can we look at what’s happening to young boys today in our society if we take away the things we would normally construct a drama around?”
Making “Adolescence” is Graham’s effort to open the conversation around knife crime in the U.K. and masculinity, a more universal topic that’s come to the fore in the social media age. Influencers like Andrew Tate, the self-styled “king of toxic masculinity” who is briefly mentioned in the series, are emblematic of the misogyny rampant on apps like Instagram and TikTok. Graham says playing Eddie didn’t allow him to understand why young men commit these acts so frequently, but it is a chance to urge viewers to consider the crisis. And though it’s specific to the U.K., the weapon could easily be a gun, a concern in the U.S., where school shootings have been pervasive.
“I’m not standing on a soapbox and shouting,” Graham says. “Ultimately, I understand what we do is entertainment. But fortunately sometimes we have the opportunity to be able to come into people’s living rooms and we have the ability to make people think, not just sit there for an hour and be entertained.”
“It’s trying to get people to turn to it as opposed to away from it,” Walters adds. “This was looking at the ‘why’ a little bit more. And the why in this instance is very layered and very intricate. It’s not always as black and white as you think it’s going to be.”
Walters describes the approach of Matriarch, which the couple founded in 2020, as “holding a mirror up to society, even if that’s a little uncomfortable.” So far the production company has embraced a variety of projects, including “Boiling Point,” “A Thousand Blows” and “Adolescence.” Because both she and Graham come from working class backgrounds, they endeavor to open doors for people from similar circumstances.
“I feel very blessed to be at the age I am now and still be working, because you just never know,” says the 51-year-old actor.
(Sophia Spring/For The Times)
“I feel very blessed to be at the age I am now and still be working, because you just never know,” Graham says. “Now with this position that me and Hannah are in, the ethos and philosophy we have with Matriarch is to try to create opportunities for kids like us.”
It’s perhaps that background that has made Graham’s body of work so grounded. The actor, who hails from Merseyside, England, often gravitates to characters with a sense of grit, even in bigger blockbusters like “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.” He’s been acting onscreen since the early ’90s, in films like “Gangs of New York” and on TV shows like “Boardwalk Empire” and “Line of Duty.” He shot two back-to-back seasons of “A Thousand Blows” as boxer Sugar Goodson before filming “Adolescence” and recently returned from New York where he was working on the biopic “Deliver Me from Nowhere” in which he plays Bruce Springsteen’s father, Douglas.
“I’ve forged them myself,” Graham says of his variety of roles. “They haven’t been offered to me or given to me. I want to play those interesting characters.”
The through line for Graham is integrity, as his collaborators have witnessed firsthand, particularly on “Adolescence.”
“He wouldn’t get involved in the project unless it meant something to him,” Doherty says. “He brings a level of realness and necessity to these parts that could be lost in a Hollywood blockbuster. He’s consistently bringing truth to these roles and these stories.”
Despite the scope of his career, Graham remains as humble as possible. He’s focused on the work, not the achievement. If the end result is social consciousness or conversation, all the better.
“I’m still that 13-year-old kid who wanted to be an actor,” he shrugs. “And sometimes I have to pinch myself when I’m in these situations. I’m here texting my mates who do proper jobs, telling them, ‘I’m jumping on a plane to New York. I’m going to meet Bruce Springsteen.’ That doesn’t happen every day, does it?”
