Stephen Graham has revealed how he gave all the kids who auditioned for a role in his new series, Adolescence, a part because he couldn’t ‘break their hearts’.

The upcoming Netflix series sees Graham play the father of a 13-year-old boy, played by Owen Cooper, who is arrested for the murder of a young girl.

As an Executive Producer on the show, Graham, 51, said the idea for the series came to him from looking at the epidemic of knife crime in the UK.

Speaking at the Next On Netflix event on Wednesday night, the father of two said: ‘The idea came as – over the past ten years or so – we’ve seen an epidemic of knife crime amongst young lads, up and down the country.

‘And for me, there were certain instances that really stuck out where young boys – and they are young boys, you know, they’re not men – were killing young girls.

‘And without being disrespectful, when these things are on the news, your judgement instantly goes to blaming the family, you blame the mum and dad.

Stephen Graham has revealed he gave all the kids that auditioned for a role in his new series, Adolescence, a part because he couldn’t ‘break their hearts’

The upcoming Netflix series sees Graham play the father of a 13-year-old boy, played by Owen Cooper, who is arrested for the murder of a young girl

As an Executive Producer on the show, Graham, 51, said the idea for the series came to him from looking at the epidemic of knife crime in the UK and for people being guilty of blaming the parents 

‘We’re all guilty of it, because that’s the easy common denominator. I just thought, ‘what if that’s not the case at all?’ That was it.’

Each episode of the series is filmed all in one take without any cuts and is said to give the viewer an ‘immersive feeling’.

Speaking about playing alongside thirteen-year-old Owen Morris, Graham said he was very aware of turning young kids down, resulting in one scene having 400 children in it.

‘We were conscious not to say, “thank you very much, and see you later, ta-rah”,’ he said.

The father of two said it was important to make the children who auditioned think ‘wow I can’. Pictured with wife Hannah Walters and daughter Grace. 

‘We knew that we wanted one kid, but the others in the final selection – we gave them the opportunity to play other characters within our piece.

‘You can break their little hearts in this position. And that’s not what you want to do.

‘You want to make these kids go, “wow, okay, I can”.

‘So they all have roles within the show.

‘Each and every one of the kids were absolutely superb.

‘In episode two, there’s 400 in one sH๏τ.’

The four-part series also stars Ashley Walters, 42, and Erin Doherty, 32 and will premiere on Netflix March 13.

Other shows announced at the event included Havoc, an action thriller fronted by Tom Hardy, an unтιтled Victoria Beckham documentary and  Lena Dunham romcom Too Much.