On Sept. 14, Owen Cooper won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Anthology Series or Movie. While his excellent portrayal of a murder suspect in the limited series “Adolescence” was absolutely praiseworthy, his win made headlines for a different reason.
He’s just 15 years old.
Cooper became the youngest male winner in any acting category at the Emmys. His first-ever acting role, “Adolescence,” immediately drummed up hype for him to be the next great child actor, with online fan casts calling for him to portray Robin in the new DC cinematic universe.
However, Cooper’s youth is an outlier for another reason. He has no prior connection to the industry.
Many of the other young, up-and-coming actors in the past decade had family members in the industry to help them. From Jack Quaid to Maya Hawke, very rarely does a young actor get a big break without knowing someone to push them through. On the other hand, Owen Cooper’s father and mother are an IT professional and a carer, respectively.
By his own admission, he doesn’t know where his acting talent comes from.
But to the entertainment industry, that’s often all that matters.
Film and television are notoriously difficult to break into, and especially for people who don’t have a disposable income; they simply can’t afford the risk of going without a job. Working-class people are automatically filtered out by a system that never gives them a chance to begin with, even though they have just as much talent as those who can make it a career.
And that problem is only getting worse.
The arts have become more exclusive in the past several years. Production companies used to be able to publish multiple movies and shows that were financially risky. Even if they didn’t make money on release, they’d recoup almost all of it in physical media releases. The advent of streaming has eliminated that.
Now, companies bank a large portion of their financial success on one or two big movies or shows per year. Everything else is left to the wayside. Because those big swings have to hit, they don’t want to take risks on up-and-coming performers, directors or writers. They need surefire talent to make surefire money.
Cooper and “Adolescence” reject this. There was no reason to believe a 15-year-old with no on-screen experience could deliver an Emmy-winning performance.
Until Cooper did.
There was no reason to expect that a four-part miniseries filmed in one continuous shot would be the second-most-watched show on Netflix ever.
Then “Adolescence” was.
Cooper’s Emmy win represents an important recognition. The arts are at their best when everyone can be involved. Everyone consumes art, so why shouldn’t it be extremely accessible to create?
Casting Cooper was a risk, and “Adolescence” was a massive risk. Both paid off because they let extremely talented people work in front of and behind the camera to create a compelling story, and they didn’t care about whether or not it would be successful.
That’s exactly why the decisions were a success.
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