“Adolescence” breakout Owen Cooper has won the BAFTA TV Award for supporting actor, a win that completes an astonishing full set of major awards for the 16-year-old’s first-ever screen role.
The win on Sunday night — aptly on home soil for the fast-rising British star — cements Cooper’s place in TV history, with him already having become the youngest actor to win the four major U.S. TV awards — Primetime Emmy, Golden Globe, Actor Award and Critics Choice — for a single performance.
Almost 14 months to the day that “Adolescence” launched, it has scooped up a near-perfect clean sweep of wins, also including at the Gotham Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, Royal Television Society Awards, its astonishing awards run has now been completed at the BAFTAs.
“Wow , it’s heavy that to be fair,” Cooper said as he lifted the award. “A year ago this time last year I was presenting an award and now I’m collecting one, so this is a bit mad.”
“Thank you to BAFTA. Thank you to the ‘Adolescence’ family — and they are family now,” he added. “In the words of John Lennon, you won’t get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it.”
Cooper also went on to list the three things you need to succeed in life: “One, an obsession. Two, a dream. And three, the Beatles.”
A record-breaking cultural behemoth, Netflix’s four-part limited “Adolescence” — co-created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham — saw Cooper play Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old accused of murdering a female classmate. Cast when he was just 13-years-old himself and with no previously professional acting experience, Cooper — who appears in three of the four episodes — became its immediate breakaway star. His central episode — filmed in a single, continuous, hour-long take opposite Erin Doherty as clinical psychologist Briony Ariston — earned the two actors particular critical recognition and was nominated for the BAFTA TV’s Memorable Moment Award.
Cooper beat out Ashley Walters in “Adolescence,” Fehinti Balogun in “Down Cemetery Road,” Joshua McGuire in “The Gold,” Paddy Considine in “Mobland” and Rafael Mathé in “The Death of Bunny Munro.”
Cooper’s co-star Christine Tremarco, who played his mother in the show, also won the BAFTA TV award for best supporting actress on Sunday night.
