{"id":511678,"date":"2026-01-12T21:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T21:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/511678\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T21:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T21:12:09","slug":"owen-cooper-how-schoolboy-conquered-golden-globes-and-changed-acting-for-a-generation-adolescence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/511678\/","title":{"rendered":"Owen Cooper: how schoolboy conquered Golden Globes and changed acting for a generation | Adolescence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Standing on stage at the Golden Globes in front of Hollywood\u2019s elite, Owen Cooper said that the experience simply \u201cdid not feel real<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 16-year-old from Warrington picked up best supporting male actor for his performance in Netflix\u2019s \u201cincel\u201d drama, Adolescence<\/a>, which was one of the big winners at the ceremony and dominated the cultural conversation around male toxicity for much of 2025.<\/p>\n

Adolescence\u2019s Golden Globes success (it took four awards) follows its triumph at the Emmys<\/a>, where it managed six gongs, including another for Cooper. As unusual as it all felt for the young actor, those who know him say his passion was there from the start.<\/p>\n

Esther Morgan, who co-founded the Drama Mob<\/a> with Coronation Street actor Tina O\u2019Brien, taught Cooper and says it was obvious he was a talent from the outset.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could tell he definitely wanted it,\u201d she says. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t messing around when it came to listening, taking direction and learning his lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan admits that the school could not prepare him for this level of success but has pushed back at the narrative that Cooper \u201ccame from nowhere<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

He had had two years with the Drama Mob before the Adolescence casting process, which involved several rounds and initially had more of Morgan\u2019s students in the running. But Cooper left an impression on casting director Shaheen Baig<\/a>. \u201cHis name just kept coming back,\u201d says Morgan.<\/p>\n

Co-writer Jack Thorne said that the first time he worked with Cooper was in rehearsals for episode three, the show\u2019s intense interview between the teenager and a psychologist, played by Erin Doherty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came in word perfect and ready to work, but it was a lot of pressure,\u201d says Thorne. \u201cSlowly but surely \u2013 with help from [director] Philip Barantini and Erin \u2013 he sort of subsumed himself. By Friday he was Jamie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s former teacher is a passionate advocate for northern actors, who are competing on an increasingly uneven playing field. An exodus from Hollywood<\/a> has made London a more attractive hub for studios, which is further centralising an industry where more than half of all productions happen in the capital.<\/p>\n

Morgan says northern actors, including the next Cooper, are being cut out.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore shows need to be made and produced up here,\u201d she says. \u201cWe need more casting directors working here because for some of our young people they don\u2019t have the funds to travel up and down to London for castings.\u201d<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t the only challenge facing the next Cooper.<\/p>\n

On stage at the Golden Globes, Cooper said he was the only boy in his class at drama school and it was \u201cembarrassing<\/a>\u201d. Morgan says there is a \u201chuge drop-off\u201d in boys attending her classes once they go to high school and pursuits such as football and rugby take over. Acting can be seen as a soft, or \u2013 to use gen Z terminology \u2013 \u201ccringe<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

That is backed up statistically too, with 17,000 boys taking GCSE drama in the UK in 2025, compared with 35,700 girls, with a similar ratio at A-level. But Morgan says Cooper\u2019s success is already affecting that dynamic.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince Owen going on to be so successful, we have had more boys coming to drama,\u201d says Morgan. \u201c<\/strong>I think he\u2019s helped with that [by] having that role model of saying, \u2018yeah, I went to drama classes, I gave it a go\u2019. I think that really has helped some of those boys to just kind of go out the comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much has been made of Adolescence being on Netflix<\/a> and the huge audience it has reached. In the week it launched its initial episode pulled in 6.45 million viewers, while the second recorded 5.9 million \u2013 breaking UK records in the process.<\/p>\n

But at its core the show is a gritty, distinctly northern drama. Most of the principal cast, like Cooper and Stephen Graham, are from the north-west. It was shot on location in Pontefract and Sheffield.<\/p>\n

Thorne is cautiously optimistic it could usher in a new wave of working-class British dramas that traditionally have not travelled well internationally. \u201cI know from trying to sell stuff I\u2019ve made abroad before that accents and British \u2018issues\u2019 were not seen as having an audience abroad,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut who knows? TV remains quite a conservative industry and they may go back to thinking a man speaking in RP<\/a> on a horse is a better bet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Standing on stage at the Golden Globes in front of Hollywood\u2019s elite, Owen Cooper said that the experience…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":511679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-511678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115884192320129929","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}