Adolescence's Stephen Graham tears up recalling his dad's reaction to landing major job

19 March 2025, 08:20 | Updated: 19 March 2025, 10:15

Adolescence's Stephen Graham tears up recalling his dad's reaction to landing major job!

By Abbie Reynolds

He literally cried his contact lens out!

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Stephen Graham is not only one of the incredible actors in Netflix's Adolescence, he actually co-wrote the show alongside Jack Throne.

Talking to Capital Breakfast he said: "I say it's kinda like we were like Frankenstein, I brought the body parts, [Jack] injected the spirit and then the rest, the cast and crew gave it the soul."

He revealed that the idea of the show came about after he had heard about multiple different instances happening across the UK of young men stabbing girls to death. He said: "And I just thought, 'Why?'"

The actor and co-writer admitted at first he did found himself blaming the parents but through this project and putting himself in the position of the parent - playing the perpetrator's dad - he has looked at how it "take a village to raise a child".

Read more: Netflix's Adolescence includes devastating hidden detail in final song

Stephen joined Capital Breakfast with Jordan North, Chris Stark and Sian Welby. Picture: Global - Stefano Broli / Alex Smith

Throughout the show the father-son relationship plays a huge role as Jamie (played by Owen Cooper) chooses his dad Eddie (played by Stephen) as his appropriate adult when he is questioned by the police over the murder of a girl from his school.

Owen has received wide acclaim for taking on this mammoth role for his first ever acting job. Stephen ended up talking about his own relationship with his father as he explained to Capital's Jordan North and Sian Welby how he first got into acting.

He recalled telling his dad that he wanted to act at just 14 years old. "He said, 'are you sure?'. And so he took me to the video shop and he got three films, he got Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter and The God Father and we watched them over the weekend."

In his career, Stephen actually went on to work with Martin Scorsese twice, who famously directed Taxi Driver and The God Father sequel.

Jamie's parents in episode 4 of 'Adolescence'. Picture: Netflix

Sian was aghast as she tried to imagine Stephen's dad's reaction to him landing jobs with Scorsese. "I actually can't [imagine]. It must've been the proudest moment," Sian said.

"It makes me wanna go," Stephen said as his eyes welled up with tears. He tried to recount the phone call he had with his dad when he landed a role in Scorsese's The Irishman, 17 years after first working with the director on Gangs of New York in 2002, but his emotions took over.

Trying to stifle his tears he continued: "My dad - woah I've gone - he proper backed me, and me mum. They supported me throughout everything, you know what I mean?

"The struggles you go through and everything - my contact lens has come out - you can imagine yeah, [the phone call] was unbelievable."

You can watch Stephen's full interview on Global player.

Jamie Miller in Adolescence. Picture: Netflix

Adolescence has received fave reviews as the show acts as cautionary tale to young men becoming indoctrinated in incel (involuntary celibate) culture.