Netflix Shares Owen Cooper’s Audition Footage for ‘Adolescence’

Netflix posted the audition tape of young star Owen Cooper (Wuthering Heights, Film Club)  for his role as Jamie Miller in Netflix’s original British series Adolescence. According to Deadline, the actor has previously received praise for his abilities from co-star Steven Graham (A Thousand Blows, Boiling Point), who compared him to Robert De Niro (Taxi Driver, Goodfellas).  

Deadline reported that Cooper had never auditioned for anything prior to Adolescence, it is his first acting job. His character, Jamie, is a 13-year-old who is arrested under the suspicion of murdering his fellow classmate. 

The series is directed by Philip Barantini (Boiling Point, Accused) and spans across four episodes. In the tape Cooper reads two scenes from the series, one where Jamie is speaking to his lawyer before his police interview and the other when he attends a psychological review by Briony Ariston who is played by Erin Doherty (The Crown, A Thousand Blows). 

Deadline detailed some of the tape’s most memorable moments. “I don’t wanna f****** sit down,” Cooper yells mid-audition, aggressively tossing a chair—a glimpse into the raw intensity he later brought to the film’s climactic scene, captured in a single take.

In another Netflix-shared clip, Cooper watches his audition tape alongside Doherty, who playfully teases him about his past hairstyle. “Oh my God, look at you,” she laughs. “Why is your hair doing that? You’re way cooler now.”

The show has done well amongst U.K. and U.S. audiences. According to Deadline, the first episode of the series became the first UK streaming series to top the weekly British ratings and set a record for the largest streaming audience in a single week. Ratings agency Barb reported that the first episode drew nearly 6.5 million viewers in its debut week.

The mini-series premiered on Netflix March 13, and all four episodes are available to stream on the platform.