One of the most gratifying things for Stephen Graham, who stars in the newly released drama Adolescence, is all the conversations it’s starting.
The four-part limited series centers on the aftermath of a shocking act of violence and how it affects a school, a community, and a family. Graham plays the patriarch of that family, Eddie Miller, whose 13-year-old son, Jamie (Owen Cooper), has been accused of murdering a schoolmate named Katie (Emilia Holliday).
Graham, who also co-created and co-wrote Adolescence with Jack Thorne (Toxic Town, Joy), had always hoped that the show would be greeted with the same kind of “love … integrity … [and] respect” that everyone who worked on it had put into it, but he says that it’s been incredible to be greeted by people from all walks of life who have been moved by what they’ve seen.
A woman came up to him recently on the streets of New York to thank him for making the series. “She had tears in her eyes,” Graham says. “She said, ‘Oh my god. … I just want to give you a hug.’ ”
And then a man who worked at his hotel came up to Graham and cited “the bit with the teddy bear” in the show’s final scene as the one that stayed with him.
“It’s crossed that generational gap,” Graham says about the impact of the series, which was inspired by very specific incidents — a “spate” of violent acts committed by teenage boys against teenage girls in Great Britain — and made it something universally resonant.
One of the ways Adolescence does this is by zeroing in on Eddie, his wife, Manda (Christine Tremarco), and their daughter, Lisa (Amélie Pease), in the final episode, revealing the different ways they must grapple with their responsibility for Jamie’s actions and their determination in moving toward the future without ignoring the past.
Below, Graham talks more about the intentions behind the series, the “overwhelming” response to its release, and how parents and children have a lot to teach each other.
How does it feel for you now that Adolescence is out in the world?
We made it with such love, such integrity, such respect, and it came from a place of passion for each and every single member [of] the crew — and I include the cast as the crew. We’re all a collective. And it was probably the most joyous experience I’ve ever had as an actor.…
I think, because it was made from love, we made our little stone, our pebble or whatever it was, and we threw it into the universe, and it landed in the pond. And the ripple effect has been, in all honesty, slightly overwhelming. You have no idea of the impact it can have. But the intention was always from a place of purity, truth, and honesty.
We made a piece that was based on truth and things that are happening in Britain with young men stabbing young girls to death. We just wanted to shine a light there, and, predominantly, we just wanted to create conversation between parents and children.
I think one of the reasons why it’s been so powerful is that it’s starting conversations, but it doesn’t give any answers.
And we never said we could.
No, because you can’t, but it inspires us to try and to have the kind of conversations in which we think about what we’re all accountable for in our lives. And it also encourages everyone to grapple with what’s happening to our society and with future generations of young people who are served information in an entirely different way than prior ones.
It’s a societal issue. Do you know what I mean? Irrespective, maybe, of your political aspirations or your economic background … I think it’s something we were all just looking for … to shine a light on [the problem], and it seems to have crossed that gap.
This is a very specific story and, as you said, inspired by specific events, but it speaks to a bigger universal problem, which is alienation. And it’s heartbreaking to see how that manifests in kids, but it also appears in Adolescence with regard to the parents, who even feel disconnected from how they raised their own children: one, Lisa, is almost a “perfect” kid, and the other committed murder, which you see Eddie and Manda questioning, wondering what they could have done differently.
The beauty and the poetry within that language, for me, [comes] down to Jack’s wonderful writing and how he explores the human condition.… But what I found about the beauty of that particular line and the poetry within that last bit of conversation, don’t forget, is that they’re the last words that Eddie hears before he enters [Jamie’s] room, where he realizes he should have spent a lot more time.
There’s a song [“Homerton”] by a lad called Loyle Carner, and he recorded his own father, and his own father says, “Sometimes the parent needs the child just as much as the child needs the parent.” Makes me [tear up], that line.
[Lisa’s] trying to keep that family together. She’s a grade-A student; she’s going to go to university. She has a bright life ahead of her. But she’s the one who’s like, “Look, we’re not moving, because it’s going to follow us around, and it’s always going to.”
She’s always going to be the sister of him that killed that girl. She’s always going to be that now for the rest of her life. And her future may well have been so bright, and it still can be. And Eddie’s so impressed and so like, “Wow.” She takes his breath away for [a] second … and he says [to his wife], “How did we make that?”
And then the beauty of the line that comes back is, “The same way we made him — with love, to the best of our ability.” What we’ve done there, we also did there. We didn’t do anything different.
Watch Adolescence on Netflix now.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
