Fresh Air - Inside Netflix's 'Adolescence'

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

The Netflix miniseries follows a 13-year-old accused of murdering a girl from his school. Co-creator and star Stephen Graham says he read about similar crimes and wanted to know: "Why is this happening?" Graham spoke with Sam Briger about the crime that inspired the show, fatherhood, and the unusual way the show was shot — in one single take. Adolescence has 13 Emmy nominations. Film critic Justin Chang reviews Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. This is Fresh Air. I'm TV critic David B. and Cooley. The Emmy Awards are being handed out this Sunday, and one of the shows with the most nominations is the Netflix British drama called Adolescence. It's up for 13 Emmys, including, three for Stephen Graham, who's our guest today. One is for co-creating adolescence, another is for co-writing it with Jack Thorne, and a third is for his unforgettable performance, nominated as

outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie. He plays the father of a 13-year-old boy who's taken by police in an early morning raid and charged with the murder of a classmate. The son, Jamie, is being processed and examined at the police station, while his father, their watches and sympathises and objects. Mr Miller. Mr. Miller, I understand, but this is a serious offense. I've got scratch marks on his left arm. I need to make sure that there's no other cuts or bruises

that we need to be aware of. I think this is a bit serious as well, don't you? I mean, how would you have felt if you were 13 and you had so good old men look at your bits? I was an accused of a crime. That's it, the old mate's accused. He hasn't been found guilty. He's being accused.

Can you not do anything about it? I'm sorry, they're entitled to under pace. Mr. Miller, I promise. I will be very careful. I don't know you from, I don't mean. Mr. Miller, we know what I mean? We really do need to cooperate with this. He's 18. He's 18.

Passcords, we can tell you. Mr. Miller, Mr. Miller, this is good for the James of defense. It's fine. Do you okay? I don't mind. Stephen Graham has two new projects coming up in October. One is the Netflix movie Good Boy, where he plays a man who kidnaps a criminal and tries to forcibly rehabilitate him.

The other is, Deliver Me from Nowhere, which stars Jeremy Allen White from the Bear as Bruce Springsteen. Graham plays Springsteen's father, Douglas Dutch Springsteen. Those roles will be added to Graham's already impressive and varied resume. He's played a Bear Knuckles Victorian England boxer in Hulu's A Thousand Blows, a union organizer in Netflix's Peaky Blinders, and Al Capone in HBO's Boardwalk Empire. And this year, the Emmy Spotlight is trained on him

as the co-creator, co-writer, and star of Adolescence, the four-part drama that has become one of Netflix's most watched shows. And with good reason. Adolescence is by far the best TV program of 2025. It's superbly written and beautifully acted. In addition to Graham, four other actors in adolescence are up for Emmys. One of them is Owen Cooper, who plays Graham's son, Jamie. And, as outstanding supporting actor in a limited or anthology series or movie,

he's the youngest ever to compete in that category. He's 15 years old, and adolescence was his first on-screen role. The intensity of the acting and writing is part of what makes adolescence so riveting. also the themes it tackles are complicated and troubling what leads some young people to acts of aggression and violence what part does social media play and how responsible or culpable if at all are the schools and the parents and finally the other thing that makes adolescents so riveting is that each of the four episodes was filmed in a single unbroken take written staged and acted so that every hour of adolescence was captured in real time like a stage play. It was a daring, daunting task for Stephen Graham to undertake, as co-creator, as writer, and especially as an actor. Fresh Air producer Sam Brigger spoke with Stephen Graham about that and more last March.

They began with another scene from the first episode of Adolescence. Stephen Graham, as the father of the recently arrested Jamie, has just met his son's court-appointed lawyer, played by Mark Stanley. Jamie has asked that his dad be present as Jamie is processed into the system, but the dad confides to the lawyer that he's not sure he's up to the job.

Excuse me, mate. Yeah. I haven't got a clue what I'm doing here. I don't know what do we say? Just don't answer for him, all right? Just be yourself. They know you his dad, we know he was dad. It's okay to process, it's okay to be shocked, and it's okay to be human.

Yeah, I mean, this isn't normal, you know what I mean? No. Never even been in a police station before. You'll be fine. I just don't want to get it wrong for me, land, you know what I mean? You'll be fine. That's a scene from adolescence starring my guest, Stephen Graham. Stephen Graham, welcome to fresh air.

Thank you. What a wonderful introduction. Thank you very much. So the show Adolescence was actually your idea. You came to your co-creator, Jack Thorne, with the idea. What was it that you were thinking about that you wanted to explore on the screen? It happened a while ago, to be honest with you, Sam. I read an article in a newspaper, which it was about a young boy who had stabbed a young girl to death. and it just made me feel quite cold and I was stunned by what I was reading and then about three or four months later there was a story on the news on television

and I was watching it and it was again it was about a young boy who had stabbed a young girl to death and this incident was as the opposite end to the country to the first incident that I'd read about and at that point if I'm completely honest it really hurt my heart but in that moment i judged the parents and i instantly said to myself you know it's got to be down to the parents and then i stopped myself uh and tried to be mindful and and questioned the fact that what if it's not maybe i shouldn't be so judgmental what if it's

not and from that basis from that premise i just thought well why is this happening why are we in this situation where you know young boys and they are young boys and they are young boys, they're not men. You know, their brains haven't been fully formed yet. Their physiology is not complete as yet, you know, adolescence is a very difficult to ages, as we all know, do you know what I mean? You go through a lot of different things, physically, mentally, and even spiritually, in the greater scheme of things, you know what I mean? But my main question was, why is this happening? And I guess that one of the things is that you're exploring why, but you're not, it's not a didactic show.

You sort of let the feelings and the issues sort of stew there, but you're not resolving them. No, not at all. And, you know, ultimately I think that's one of the main themes of the show is that they can't be resolved. And we don't have the answers. There's a wonderful saying, which is it takes a village to raise a child. And within that kind of complexity of what that says to me,

within what we are doing it's kind of like maybe we're all accountable and that comes down to you know the parenting maybe how we parents our children the school system how the education system guides and tries to educate our children the government you know how they can bring in legislation um the community and the environment of where we live and then on top of that now which was something that me and you never had to suffer from and our parents never had to think about but there is now this big thing called the internet. When a child closes the door back in a day when it was me and you, we didn't have access to the rest of the world and we couldn't be influenced dramatically by other people

and their theories and their thought processes. So that was what we really wanted to look at. You know what I mean? Maybe we're all accountable in some way for what is happening today in our society. So your character, Eddie, is a successful businessman. He has a plumbing business. he's lifted himself up in the world.

He's trying to be a good husband and a good father. And you say that you based him to some degree on your uncles and your friends' fathers. What was it about them that you took? For me, Eddie, the character that I played, I wanted to make him more like that kind of archetypal man in a way, the kind of men that I was brought up with, like, my uncles, and like I've said, you know, my friends' fathers and stuff like that, who are beautiful, wonderful men,

hardworking men who go to work, say maybe six o'clock, seven o'clock in the morning and don't manage to get back home until gone six, seven, eight at night, do you know what I mean? So the kind of area that they live in is it's a really nice housing estate, do you know what I mean? It's a well-to-do area in many ways. It's not, it's far from upper class,

and it's a working-class household in a really nice area. So I wanted to concentrate on the fact that they come from a good home and there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of love in that home that the mother and father primarily are doing the best for their children and his sister is an A-level student. You know, she's a really hard work and conscientious student because it's unconventional for us to follow the story through the eyes of the family who are from the perpetrator.

Normally, as you can imagine, it would be the victim side of it. And rightly so, do you know what I mean? In that conventional drama, that's what we would see. But also what I wanted to try and do with this process was eliminate the possibilities of pointing the finger and saying, well, this is why. So I didn't want it to be like dad raised his hand and hit his boy. So normally we could be able to point the finger in that direction and say this is why he did it. But we wanted to eliminate that and start with a clean slate. So Eddie is an interesting character because he can be very emotional but he's also not really in touch with his emotions like they kind of have their way with him yeah yeah and that's there's a lot of pain

inside eddie you know when after he realizes what his son has done because what it is as well was what i wanted to try and try and achieve and try and accomplish with the respects to eddy is like i said They're kind of old-fashioned, dark a type of man in many ways. Who, you know, it comes from a lineage of men who are not very tactile. And that kind of comes from the process of with my son and with my daughter, you know, I'm very blessed to have two beautiful children. And I hugged them and cuddle them and I tell them I love them every single day, every single day because I adore my kids.

I really do that, you know, one of the best things. the best thing in my life I've ever been a part of. They really are, you know what I mean? Yeah, Stephen's very soppy and I wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm almost, you know, look, even just thinking of Grace and Alfie is making me start to tear up and I'm just ridiculous. They laugh at me all the time because I'm very teary in that house. But what I wanted to do was to play the polar opposites of that. And one morning when Alfie had some of his mates were in his house, I was giving Alfie a cuddle because they were going on.

for the day and I give him a cud and I give my kiss on the cheek and I said be good have a good day do you know what I mean um and his friend started to cry a little bit and I was like you you okay um and alfi jumped in and said his dad never hugs him and his dad's never told him that he loves him um and it just broke my heart a little bit do you know what I mean and I've seen him with his father and and you can see the love his father has for him and and for me it was completely alien I thought there was no way that that that that his father's father would have never done something like that. Because to me, it was just such a natural thing that I don't even think about it. The show is going to stay with me, I think, forever, a very long

time. And it's really hard to watch. It's really well made. It's really compelling. But you go through a lot of very intense emotions. Like, you have a complete breakdown at one point. As an actor, how hard is that to go through? Is there an aftermath that you have to reckon with after doing that kind of performance? For a lot of people that it is here, and I understand it, and I get it. And to some extent, I think maybe there is, for me, I'm also able to jump in and jump out and decompress quite quickly now,

which is a kind of technique I've learned myself over time. Do you have tools for that? Yeah, yeah, and those tools are, well, the biggest tool for that is my wife, Hannah, on many levels if I phone it and say it's been a really tough day at work today love you know I had to cry and stuff

she'd be like oh really and I'm like yeah yeah yeah and I go oh am I do I sound like a d*** and she'll be like yes she'll go well I'll tell you what the dog I'd die of her of course yeah but she understands it

and she does it and you know if there's anyone that can dive into emotions when I don't set it's Hannah she's unbelievable so when I try and do it some she just goes oh well the dog had diaried all over the carpet this morning and I'm like oh and she went and I had to go shopping and the car ran out of petrol while I was on the motorway and I'm like oh okay cry me a river Stephen yeah exactly that's kind of where she goes but again you know and I got and I know look for me family is the most important thing to me it's it's it's them they're my rock that they make me the man who I am do you know what I mean I am here because of them mainly as well and just to share this with you and these are the tricks of the trade. On that last scene, on that episode, it was the very last take. I think it was like

take 12 or something like that, but it was the very final take. Oh, was it take 16? Oh, was it 16? Wow. Okay, God. Yeah, we had to stop a couple of times. One, the door wasn't open when he was trying to back into the door with the Cambron, so he just hit the window. There was a couple of times the car wouldn't start as we got it and as we set off. So there was a, yeah, oh, then we got stuck at the traffic lights. That's right. Um, so take. 16 and what happened was again it was the last day and it was the very last day of film and so again my kids both grace my daughter and alfi were there and hannah was there for that day and for that last take when i go into the bedroom i had no idea some that they'd done it honestly

i didn't and i had gone into that bedroom obviously 15 times and so i had a kind of idea of what i was going to do and what i was going through and philip come up with a beautiful idea when we were in rehearsals and he said I'm just going to put a teddy bear on the bed and I was like why and he was like just see what happens so all the maternal instincts he felt for that teddy bear kind of just come from nowhere do you know what I mean in many ways because it's a replacement for his son but anyway when I came into the room what Hannah and the kids had done and this is the take that you see so this is where it comes from as well what Hannah and I'm already in the moment don't get me wrong I'm completely in the moment but what my kids and Hannah had done they put photographs

on the wall of them and me and they just put we're so proud of you dad we love you so much and obviously then you can imagine I've told you I'm a very soppy person I wear my heart on my sleeve and I just too just yeah and I just went

do you know what I mean it was like it just all came out and then when I'd finish that particular scene yeah they grabbed all to me and yeah they didn't let go me for a while and I did cry for quite a bit of time after that actually. But we all cried on that set after that particular scene when we'd finished the. So just talking about the sort of technical issue, as I said, like each of these episodes is one take. There's no editing. This is similar to a movie that you did a few years

back called Boiling Point, which takes place in a restaurant. It's a great film. But it's one location. But here, like in this first episode, you start in the family home and then you drive to the station, the camera's following you, and then you have to get all the other actors from the house to the station. Like, talk about some of the technical things that you had to figure out. The beauty of this is where we have three weeks

to shoot each episode. But what we do within that context is, for the first week, we rehearse the script and we go through the script like we're about to do a play. Because they are kind of like little plays. I mean, yeah, yeah, of course. And that's the beauty of it, you know. But we rehearsed the script and we go through the script.

And it was great because we had myself there and we had Jack the writer. So it was a beautiful position that we were in where we could tweak the language. We could adjust what was happening to our environment. And in the same respect, you know, me and Jack are not 14-year-old boys. But we could ask Owen, what would he say in these particular situations? Owen Cooper, who plays your son, Jamie? Yes, yeah, that's right, Owen Cooper. who's phenomenal.

But within that context, we could get to use the real authentic language. It's such a gift because you're able to marry both disciplines. So you have that spontaneity and the live kind of feeling and exhilaration of theatre, but you have the technical ability and the kind of nuance and the realism of film and television acting. Right.

But then also because of the technique of it being a one shot, you know, you're able like in episode two, to travel all around the school. Right. Which was an actual location with hundreds of kids walking around. Yes. Yeah, it really was. And it was actually, you know, for I think about 150 of our extras of the supporting artists, it was their school. Yeah. So that was great because they, you know, they know, they know the place and they really felt at home. So in that first week, we work on a script.

And in the second week, we work with all of the crew, all of the crew come on set. and we negotiate and we begin to walk through our pathway of what we're going to do and where we're going to go and how we're going to get there and that's when you have everybody about so you know you can then the sound department they can plant mics here and there so we really really meticulously go over

and over and over and over our movements and the third week is when we begin to shoot so we do two takes a day so sometimes you know hopefully at the minimum we will have 10 takes 10 complete takes Yeah so we shop for five days And you do two takes a day

But as is with episode one The take you see is take two With episode two The take we used was take 14 Would you know after doing all your takes That you were kind of leaning towards one That you would eventually use or Well I did personally

I did on the first one I knew it was the second take I just knew it was And I was kind of like, can we go home now? And Phil was like, no, we're being paid to be here for the rest of the week. And I said to Phil, it's not going to get better than that. And he was like, you never know. And I was like, trust me, that's it.

Actor Stephen Graham, speaking to fresh air producer Sam Brigger last March. Graham is co-creator, co-writer, and star of the Netflix show Adolescence, which is nominated for 13 Emmy Awards, including three for Graham. I'm David B. In Cooley, and this is Fresh Air. Support for NPR, and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. Stephen, I wanted to go back a little bit to one of your early successes, which is the movie This is England.

from 2006, and you play a racist and violent prone skinhead named Combo. And there's a pretty famous speech in the movie that's heavily infused with white nationalist ideology. We're not going to play it because I think there's an F word in every sentence, so there'd just be like lots of bleeps. But, you know, I imagine in an acting career there's a lot of times where you have to like espouse beliefs as a character that you don't hold yourself but I was wondering if this one may have been particularly hard obviously in part because it's it's just racist but also

because you have a multiracial background and one of your grandfathers is from Jamaica like did that make playing this character particularly difficult for you it didn't make it particularly difficult but what it did make me want to do And as well, when I explained to Shane, because originally when I went to... Shane Meadows, who's the... Shane Meadows, yeah, who's the fantastic director. When I explained to Shane that I was mixed race,

I kind of thought that he might then give the part to somebody else. Because we'd had auditions and we did a bit of a workshop. And Andrew Shim, who plays Milky, who's the black character, who's part of the gang as well. We'd endure in the improvisation, as you can, can imagine, you know, I went to some extremes with the language that I used. And I never said anything to anyone, but that night I managed to get, I managed to get Andrew's phone number and I phoned him up and I said, look, I just want to apologize for the language and for the things that I

said to you today. I want you to know that that's not the way I think. It's not me at all. And I hope you can understand. I said, and to be completely honest with you, I'm mixed race. And he was like, really? I said, yeah. He went, I thought so. I thought there was something. And I was like, but can you do me a favor? And he went, what? I went, please don't. And I said, I was about to say, don't tell Shane. He shouted, Shane, Shane. And I was like, oh, oh, no. And then he gave the phone to Shane. And Shane was like, hello, hello, mate. And I was like, all right. And he went, what is it? And I was like, uh, look, Shane, I just wanted to say, I've just told Schimmie, look, I'm mixed race. You're probably going to want to give the part to somebody

else now and I understand that and he was like are you kidding me I went no I'm just he was like this is amazing he said imagine what we can do with it now I went what do you mean he went well we can take it somewhere else now we can take it somewhere else that we never thought had taken it um and then we did you know we really worked on it and what it became about was it became more about an abandonment issue from his father um and kind of not being accepted or not being a part of the identity of his self and the black part of his family. So we added such a complexity to it then. You grew up just outside of Liverpool in Kirby,

and did you have to deal with issues of racism as a child coming from a mixed family? Yeah, yeah. And if I'm honest, yet, from both sides. I had a little struggle of my own back then trying to find the sense of where and how I belong. You mean your identity, sort of, your racial identity? Yeah, completely.

I'm culturally, racially, in many ways, you know what I mean? Because there were certain elements of my white cousins and on that side of my family who said some horrible things and, you know, even other family members said some horrible things and said some really horrible things to my mother at the time. And then on the side of the black family, you know, You know, things were said to me and said to my mother as well in a horrible sense from both sides of it. So it did take a while and it kind of, you know, it's maybe in my early teens. I'm not saying that that's what my life was like all the time because it was very happy and joyous, you know, my household, my mom living.

But it was just me and my mom for the first 10 years. And I adore my mother. God bless her soul. She was, you know, she was the strong matriarch and she was a wonderful woman. And my pops came into my life when I was 10. Your stepfather? Yeah, my stepfather. He is my stepfather.

But he raised you. He was. Yeah, he raised me. He raised me. He raised me. And he's mixed race as well. So he really taught me about my sense of identity and who I am and where I'm from. And taught me about the likes of Marcus Garby and Tucson Lobature and Malcolm X,

Martin Luther King. So he filled me with the history and the knowledge of who I was. Do you know what I mean? In many ways. And then he also inspired me and led me to believe that anything is possible and to follow my dreams. But as a kid growing up, there was, you know, at times it was difficult. And it took a little while for me to find my sense of self and for me to be completely comfortable with who I am really. Do you know what I mean in that respect?

Which I, you know, I'm, I sit with inside myself of who I am today and I'm completely comfortable with myself. but it takes a long time, I think. You said your stepfather helped you sort of with your cultural and racial identity. He also helped you when you told your family you wanted to be an actor. Do you have this great story of him taking you to the video store and renting, like, all these great movies? Yeah, yeah, he did. Taxi driver and Deer Hunter. Taxi driver, the Deer Hunter.

and the Godfather. And it was kind of that's where my the beginning of my love affair for filmmaking started and the art and the craft of what it is, do you know what I mean? And then he introduced me to the likes of David Lynch and Cori Sauer and yeah, Martin Scorsese, do you know what I mean? All of these great directors, Ken Loach, as well,

Alan Clark, you know, I got a real great, education from my pops because my pops has always loved the film and that's kind of where it began for me and then you know me him and my mum used to always go we'd go like to the Tate and to art and he made me look at art and things differently you know my childhood was beautiful I loved you know we'd go we'd go to to the galleries and stuff like that me and my mom do you know what I mean I'm in my mom we'd walk around and we'd look at paintings and they just filled my head full of culture do you know what I mean and yet I came from this housing estate and from a block of flats but yet they made me dream big and they made me see that you lived in a public housing

apartment is that yeah yeah yeah yeah that's where I kind of grew up in the very beginning Stephen Graham speaking to fresh air producer Sam Brigger last March Graham stars in the Netflix show Adolescence which is nominated for 13 Emmy Awards including Graham for outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie. They'll continue their conversation after a break. This is fresh air. Did it seem like an impossible stretch to you that one day you would be, you know, on a Martin Scorsese movie set with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro?

Of course. The people you're watching on your television. Yeah. So my wall, most of my mates had, you know, soccer players you call them, football players. We call them over you. most of my mates and had football players on their walls. And I did have, I had the F.A. Cup winning side Liverpool with Kenny Daglis. I had them on my wall.

But then I also had posters and like little beautiful kind of postcards of Hal Pacino, Robert De Niro, Daniel DeLuis, Gary Oldman, do you know what I mean? I had wonderful pictures of all of the, William Defoe, all of these actors on my wall, do you know what I mean? So you can imagine as a young kid. And don't forget, it's not like I'm even in America. I'm right across the water in this little place called Liverpool. And they were on my wall these people.

So can you imagine what went through my head? One, the first time when I met Martin Scorsese, and I was lucky enough and privileged enough to be a part of Gangs of New York. But then can you imagine what happened to my little head when I was sat at the table with Marty at the monitor, Alpercha, even saying it now, it just doesn't seem real. Martin Scorsese at the Monter, Robert De Niro, and Al Pacino sat at the table and Marty says, okay, are we ready?

And action. Can you just see for a split second what happened to that little kid's head? Yeah. Well, let's hear that scene. Let's hear that. Oh, wow. You set that up quite well, Stephen Graham. Thank you.

This is a scene from the Irishman where you play. a gangster and union head, Tony Provenzano, who's known as Tony Pro, and you have a real beef with Jimmy Hoffa, who's played by Al Pacino. You were both in prison at the same time. You got in an argument there, but at this point you're both out of prison, and Hoff is trying to become the president of the teamsters, but he needs your endorsement, and he hates you, but he agrees to meet, and you guys are in Florida, and Frank Sheeran, who's played by Robert De Niro, was there.

You're late, and Al Pacino does not like that. You're late. And it was traffic. Yeah, it's traffic. Wasn't it traffic? You give me traffic. It was traffic. What do you want for us?

It was bump with a bubble. Yeah, no, no, it's bad, you know. Traffic. I never waited for anyone who was late more than 10 minutes in my life. I'd say 15. 15's right. No, 10. I don't think so.

Ten's not enough. You have to take traffic into account. That's what I'm doing, I'm taking traffic into account. That's why it's ten. I still say 15. No, ten. Fine, we disagree on that. How about twelve and a half a minute?

There we go. Twelve and a half. The middle, right in the middle. Beautiful, beautiful. More than ten, you're saying something. You're saying something to me? No, I'm here. He says what it says.

So, there it is. Where do we go from here? What can I do for you? I want you. I want you to endorse me for, you know what? But before we get there, let's straighten that other thing out. No, the other thing is none of my business.

my business. I can't do anything about your pension. I can't. Not with Fitz in there. Fitz is in there, you know, you go to Fitz. I did. He'll help you out. I did. He said he'll take care of but no questions asked. You wouldn't do that, but he will. I meant the other thing. What other thing? You know. I don't know. Your apology. My apology. My apology for what? For what you see? For what you said when you were sitting there in the ice cream like some king. That was an ethnic slur. You people.

Did you know what he said? No, I mean, I heard he had an altercation in the camp, but I don't know. Yeah, you people. That's what you said, right, Jim? You people. Am I beneath you? Definitely. Jimmy, come on.

That's Stephen Graham with some. other famous actors Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in the movie, The Irishman. So, like, first of all, this is, like, Goodfellas caliber, like, dialogue, like, you know, you think I'm funny, like, you know, some of the Scorsese dialogue, like, it, I imagine if you're reading it on the page, it might seem, like, really banal or boring, but, like, the way that you have these great actors doing it, it's just so full of, like, energy. Can you talk about that? Yeah, you're right, you know, you have these great,

you have the great dialogue on a script. And then it's kind of set up and you rehearse and you play with it. And with this particular scene, it was going good, but we cut some of the dialogue, but it was going really good. But it was, there was still, it was lacking something.

And Marty said to me, he was like, It'll free it up a little bit. And I was like, what, can I improvise? And he went, yeah, just free it up a little bit. So, previously, when we'd done a couple of takes, I was chatting. And there was no dialogue coming from Frank. So Rob didn't have any dialogue. And I was kind of in my, like I said to you before, don't forget, I'm a kid who's got posters of these people on his wall.

Do you know what I mean? So I'm thinking to myself, I'm in a scene. And, you know, sometimes the strange thing about acting is your own head pops into your, thought processes while you're doing the lines sometimes, which is really strange. Do you know what I mean? But it's just kind of one of those things that happen. So I'm talking with Al, and then I look around and I look and in my head, my head goes, oh, there's Robert De Niro.

And I'm like, just carrying on doing the scene. And then we carry on. And then in my head it goes, oh, no, I'm in a scene with Robert De Niro. He doesn't say anything. and it's like oh and then marty said free it up bring some life into it and i was like okay so then that whole and he comes up with the best line that whole thing about 15 minutes and 10 minutes i just turned at one point because it's edited together beautifully as well and i just turned at one point and i said what do you think frank and he you know that he didn't have any lines at all in the

scene and then he comes up with the finest line in the whole scene and he goes maybe 12 and a half you know what i mean down the middle and then it it came a line I go to stand up and walk away and they're like, no, no, no, no, come on, sit down, sit down. And in that little bit where he says, you know, and the ethnic slay, and I go, did you know about this? And he goes, well, I heard he's had an altercation.

So you kind of make it real and bring him into the scene. And after we'd finished, I went, no, I'm really sorry, was that okay? Because I just threw a few things, and they were like, what, you're kidding me? No, it came alive. Did you feel that? And as you can imagine, for me, personally, that's like my Champions League final

that particular scene being a part of that you know what I mean it blew my mind and what I really really took away from that particular day as well was the humility of both of those men and how they conducted themselves on set

and how they treated everybody with respect but also when it came to doing the work they had no ego and that's the biggest lesson any actor can ever learn from those two masters who were there at work. Stephen Graham, thank you so much for coming on Fresh Air. Thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Stephen Graham, speaking with Fresh Air producer Sam Brigger last March. Graham stars in the Netflix drama Adolescence, which is nominated for 13 Emmy Awards. The Emmys are scheduled to be televised Sunday night on CBS. This is Fresh Air. Down Abbey, the grand finale, is the third and third. purportedly last film adapted from the beloved six-season series about life at a British country estate in the early 20th century. The movie, which opens in theaters this week, finds many changes afoot at Downton in 1930, with a large ensemble of returning veterans joined by actors Paul Giamadi, Alessandro Navola, and Simon Russell Beale.

Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review. Ever since the events of Downton Abbey began in 1912, the characters haven't been able to stop talking about how quickly the world around them is changing. Paradoxically, the constant repetition of this idea has made the show, and the movies, feel comfortingly and sometimes annoyingly static. Sure, a lot has happened over six seasons and two movies. A World War, an epidemic, inventions, revolutions, births, deaths, marriages, scandals, and an awful lot of servant turnover.

But the class constraints and gender roles of the era are still largely in effect. The winds of progress sure do take their sweet time, and so does the creator and screenwriter Julian Fellows, who's clearly reluctant to say goodbye to these characters or upend their world order too abruptly. And so we have a third movie, Downton Abbey, the Grand Finale, which sounds like a pretty definitive farewell, but who knows. Either way, it's much better than the previous movie, Downton Abbey, a new era,

which felt smug and preposterous even for a series that has always been unapologetically both. The new movie, directed by Simon Curtis, takes place in 1930. A portrait of the recently deceased Dowager Countess, the late great Maggie Smith, hangs on one of the house's many walls. Even in death, she's still looking down on everyone. Lady Mary Crawley, the superb Michelle Dockery, is preparing to take charge of Downton, while her father, Robert, reluctantly steps into retirement with his wife, Cora. As succession dramas go, the Crawleys aren't exactly the Murdox, but their plans do hit a snag when Mary ditches her absentee husband,

and immediately becomes a social. pariah. Divorce is still frowned upon, and soon, Mary can't get a dinner invitation to save her otherwise still extremely enviable life. In this scene, Mary commiserates with her visiting American uncle, Harold, played by Paul Jamadi. So let me guess, Robert is furious and Kora's sympathetic. Papa's miserable, as much as angry. Now, Kora's a yank. She knows society can learn to live with divorce. It'll be true here before you. too long. But it's not true yet. Still, Downton keeps me busy. What are you up to there?

Mainly renovating the cottages and doing up the old smoking room. I thought a music room would be a wonderful memorial for both my grandmothers. Hmm, that's a nice idea. Even if my mother was more Gershwin than Rachmaninoff. It's a lot to get done, but that's where you come in. I've really got to go. Enjoy your dinner. Good night. Good night. Harold has problems of his own. He's missing.

managed the estate of his and Cora's late mother, plunging Downton into a fresh wave of financial uncertainty right on the heels of the Depression. Harold has brought along an advisor, Gus Sambrook, played by Alessandro Nivola, with an oily smile that immediately puts you on high alert. Meanwhile, there are a lot of changes going on downstairs. Carson, the butler, is finally retiring, though he has mixed feelings about relinquishing his authority. The cook, Mrs. Patmore, is exiting with far more grace, proudly seating control of the kitchen to her protege, Daisy, played by the winning Sophie McShera.

As the crawlies are downsized and Lady Mary is ostracized, Fellows orchestrates a flurry of let's put on a show's subplots. Plans are underway for the annual county fair, and Simon Russell Beale steals every scene as a glowering local snob, who resists every effort to make the event more open to the community. And Dominic West is back as the dashing actor Guy Dexter, with his personal assistant and not-so-secret boyfriend, Thomas Barrow, the excellent Rob James Collier.

Surely the only former Downton Footman ever to return to the place as an overnight guest. Best of all, they've also brought along none other than Noel Coward, played by Artie Frushan, who does a droll impersonation of the great playwright. In one lovely scene, Coward sings and plays the piano for their, the crawlies and their dinner guests, while the servants listen from a distance. I was reminded of a near identical sequence from Gosford Park, the manor-house murder mystery that earned Julian Fellows a screenwriting Oscar more than two decades ago. Gosford Park was directed by Robert Altman, whose sharp democratic sensibility kept the

material's classism in check. Downton Abbey, by contrast, has always drawn a warm bath of nostalgia, for the heyday of the landed gentry. And the movies have leaned into this, to the point of giving the downstairs characters short shrift. Here, though, fellows wisely course-corrects, cutting back on the convoluted plotting, and zeroing in on the emotional dynamics.

Hugh Bonneville and Jim Carter have a moving moment in which Robert and Carson acknowledge their years of side-by-side leadership. Laura Carmichael also gets a few commanding scenes as Lady Edith, who's so often been at odds with her older sister Mary, and now becomes her strongest ally. It's enough to make me want to see what happens next, when Mary, raised in an era when noble estates couldn't be owned or inherited by women, is now fully in charge. I'm not asking for a fourth movie, but that could change. Things often do, as Downton Abbey always reminds us.

Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed Downton Abbey, the grand finale. On Monday's show, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tremaine Lee explores the devastating toll of gun violence in America, in his new book A Thousand Ways to Die. Through intimate portraits, Lee shows how lost reverberates across families and communities, reshaping lives and futures, including his own.

I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Brigger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Thea Chaloner. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld, and Adam Stanishefsky.

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