Stephen Graham has admitted he has been blown away by the incredible response to the Netflix show
Stephen Graham has admitted he has been blown away by the incredible response to the Netflix show
Stephen Graham has been blown away by the response to Netflix’s Adolescence. The 51-year-old from Kirkby has won acclaim for his powerful performance as Eddie Miller in the four part show.
Stephen, who also co-wrote the programme with Jack Thorne, interrogates the harrowing question of “what would you do if your teenage son was accused of murder?” The programme has been a huge hit across the world and has broken Netflix records by pulling in 24.3 million views globally in the first four days after its release before climbing to 66.3 million after two weeks.
Stephen issued an update on whether he would consider a follow-up story to Adolescence after the incredible success. In an interview with Variety, he said: “Possibly, let’s see how the figures are. But yeah, there’s the possibility of developing another story.”
The Boardwalk Empire star admitted he has been taken aback by the impact the show has had. In the same interview, he said: “I suppose what I’m trying to say is that we had no idea that it would impact socially the way it has, but it seems to have cut through all the race, creed and hierarchical structures of society with the message that it’s carrying about our youth.”
Stephen’s wife Hannah Walters stars in the show and is also an executive producer on the project. She told Variety how she has also been taken aback by the response.
She said: “It’s been overwhelming. Somebody sent us an email saying that he’d been the business for 38 years and had never known anything to have had an impact like that.
“We’re number one in 80 countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, Australia … it’s just incredible. I didn’t think the subject matter would resonate with the world, but it really has.”
Stephen and Hannah’s comments comes after co-writer Jack Thorne appeared to rule out a second season of Adolescence. On This Morning, he said: “The first is, I don’t think we’re the right people to tell Katie’s story.
“So, I think there are other makers out there that could tell beautiful dramas about Katie or girls like Katie, those shows should be made.
“Our aim was to try and tell Jamie’s story as fully as we possibly could, and maybe trying to tell her story would dilute that in some way, or maybe we would be inadequate to that task.
“The second thing, in terms of the second series is, I think Jamie’s story is finished. I don’t think there’s anywhere more we can take Jamie, so I don’t think there is a series two.”
Each of the four episodes of the series were shot in one, continuous take, and Jack would “love” to tell stories in the same format in the future.
He added: “We’d love to explore the one-shot format in another way. We’d love to tell other stories with it, but I don’t think a series two of ‘Adolescence’ is quite right for us.
“I hope what this show does is it doesn’t provide easy answers. It doesn’t say, ‘This is the way to solve this, this is the way to do that. I hope what it provokes is conversations on the sofa, conversations in classrooms, and, hopefully, conversations in government.”