Newcomer Owen Cooper is on the road to stardom after playing Jamie Miller in Netflix’s Adolescence miniseries.
“Everyone’s been saying such nice things,” Cooper shared during a March 2025 interview with Variety following the show’s premiere. “My agent has seen it and she said it was really good. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t really watch it like I’m watching a normal show. I just watch it because I’m in it.”
The seemingly modest young star said he has “heard positive things” from the series, which is getting him early Emmy Awards buzz.
Cooper also noted that costar Stephen Graham, who played his dad on the show, was “always checking in” throughout the emotionally charged shoot.
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“When it was just us two — with no camera — in the police cell, and he scruffed me up and said, ‘You’re never going to see your mum again, you’re never going to see your dad again,’ and was going on and on,” the teen recalled. “Before then, I’d been frustrated because I hadn’t been getting emotional. But after that point I was emotional in every take. So that helped me a lot. He was amazing to work with.”
In September 2025, Cooper took home the Emmy award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. He was the youngest male actor to take home the accolade in that category at age 15.
“Standing up here is just so surreal. Honestly when I started these drama classes a couple years ago, I didn’t expect to be even in the United States nevermind here,” he said in his speech. “But tonight proves that if you listen and you focus and you step out of your comfort zone you can achieve anything in life. I was nothing about three years ago and I’m here now.”
Keep scrolling for everything to know about Cooper:
He Was an Athlete
When asked by Variety about his previous acting experience, Cooper replied, “Literally nothing.” He had dreams of being a professional soccer — football in the U.K. — player.
Tom Holland Inspired Him
After watching Holland in the 2012 movie The Impossible, Cooper decided he wanted to be an actor.
“I want to play Spider-Man,” he told i-D in March 2025. “A lot of films I watch are not films I should be watching.”
He Is a Trained Actor
Once Cooper decided that he wanted to pursue a career in the entertainment industry, he started taking classes at The Drama MOB in Manchester, England.
“The lessons were just hourly lessons on a Tuesday where we’d get a piece of script and just read it off,” he told Variety. “But I was just doing it for a hobby and didn’t expect much from it. And then when Adolescence came, I obviously took it a lot more seriously. And I just took it on the chin really, and just did it.”
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‘Adolescence’ Is His Acting Debut
There was “literally nothing” on Cooper’s acting resume when he filmed a self-tape for Adolescence.
“In the first one, you had to pretend to go into a headmaster’s office and act like you’ve not done anything at all — but you actually haven’t, you’re innocent,” Cooper recalled when telling i-D about filming his audition. “And then in the second one you had to act like you haven’t done anything wrong — but you really had.”
He’s Starring in an Emerald Fennell Movie
Variety broke the news in March 2025 that Cooper would be taking on the role of Young Heathcliff in Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, which is set to star Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie.
