How casting directors are turning on nepo babies and striking gold by hiring unknown actors with zero experience such as Owen Cooper and Keiyon Cook

When Owen Cooper starred in Netflix‘s harrowing crime drama Adolescence, viewers could have easily mistaken him for a seasoned pro.

But the 15-year-old from Warrington had zero acting experience before his performance as the teenage killer in Stephen Graham’s Netflix hit.

Graham selected the actor, who was 13 at the time of filming, out of 500 other auditionees, not only for his ‘unique’ abilities, but also to create opportunities for a child from a working-class background.

‘We try to create opportunities both in front of and behind the cameras, you know, for working class kids, or people who wouldn’t normally have those opportunities,’ Graham told Heart via Liverpool Echo.

He added: ‘We wanted someone fresh and not used to the whole kind of way that we work and stuff like that’.

The co-creator’s instinct was spot on, and Cooper was so convincing in his chilling portrayal of Jamie Miller that he has since landed himself a role as young Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s upcoming Wuthering…