The 15-year-old actor stars as troubled teen Jamie in the Netflix crime-drama
Owen Cooper’s Adolescence audition tape has gone viral on social media, with fans claiming the young star is going to be an actor to watch in the future.
Earlier this month, Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne’s new miniseries Adolescence debuted on Netflix to astonishing reviews.
The four-part crime-drama chronicles the dawn arrest of Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old schoolboy who is accused of murdering his female classmate.
Adolescence | Official trailer
(Netflix)
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Each episode, shot in one continuous take, tells the story of how Jamie had become radicalised online, identifying with incel culture and misogynistic ideologies.
Owen Cooper, 15, who portrays Jamie in the programme, beat out 500 other boys to the job – and now his audition tape has appeared online.
“I didn’t even know this got filmed,” the UK actor said during a video with fellow Adolescence alumna Erin Doherty.
In the audition clip, a visibly younger Owen was seen playing Jamie, professing his innocence to the crime of stabbing his schoolmate to death.
“I hated that, I hated that,” Cooper said after the tape finished.
“Well you’re not supposed to like looking at yourself,” Doherty replied. “But that was great!”
The Warrington native added that he believed that the particular audition tape was what successfully landed him the role of Graham’s wayward son.
Check out the moment below:
Owen Cooper and Erin Doherty react to Owen's audition tape for Jamie in Adolescence. pic.twitter.com/uanxDbluHa
— Netflix (@netflix) March 23, 2025
Owen Cooper and Erin Doherty react to Owen’s audition tape for Jamie in Adolescence.
Fans have since been having their say on the clip, with one X user typing: “If he (or mostly his parents) makes the right choices, this kid’s gonna be a star,
“What he does in episode three is amazing. Too bad they left him almost entirely out of episode four. Big mistake.”
A second replied: “That’s lovely to see how far they’ve both come! It’s inspiring to witness growth like that.”
“Must’ve been one hell of an audition if he landed that role,” another remarked.
Previously Cooper has lifted the lid on how he found the Adolescence audition process at such a tender age.
“I was doing acting as a hobby and doing drama lessons, but I didn’t expect anything to come of it but then I got the audition and my head changed,” he told the Royal Television Society.
“It was scary at first but then I met Phil and Stephen so I got comfortable pretty quick,” he explained.
Cooper also confessed that diving into his characters’ head was the most difficult aspect of filming the four-part series.
He told Metro – who reports fans have tipped Cooper for success following his ‘Oscar-worthy’ Netflix performance – that his co-stars helped him become ‘comfortable’ with his character’s incel nature.
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Owen Cooper’s next role is in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation (Netflix)
“With the help of Stephen and Phil and Erin, they helped me into it. But I’ll probably say his view on other people is the most challenging part of Jamie to play,” he added.
Following his Adolescence success, Cooper is set to make a splash in Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.
The Hollywood flick, starring Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Star Trek’s Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton, will see Cooper portraying a younger version of Heathcliffe, the book’s haunted central protagonist.
Euphoria actor Jacob Elordi, who also stared in Fennell’s Saltburn, is set to play the older version of Heathcliff in the Warner Bros. film.
According to Cooper – who could go on to become an Academy Award contender if the film qualifies – both Robbie and Elordi chatted to him on the set while getting their makeup done.
Wuthering Heights is set to be released in the United States on February 13, 2026.
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