Adolescence creator and star Stephen Graham asks dads to share letters with sons
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Owen Cooper (left) and Stephen Graham (right) attend Netflix's Adolescence event in North Hollywood on May 27.
PHOTO: AFP
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LONDON – Stephen Graham, creator and star of searing teen murder saga Adolescence (2025), launched an appeal on Oct 15 for fathers around the world to pen and then share letters with their sons.
The British actor is teaming up with psychology lecturer Orly Klein for the project, which will see a selection of the entries published by Bloomsbury in a book called Letters To Our Sons.
It follows Graham’s Emmy-winning Netflix series, a grim cautionary tale of toxic masculinity and a fictional schoolboy Jamie (played by teenage actor Owen Cooper), arrested on suspicion of murdering a female classmate with a knife. It became one of the most-talked-about TV shows of recent years.
“After my experience of making Adolescence, I was really surprised with the amount of dads that came up to me and told me the kind of conversations they’ve been having with their sons,” Graham, who plays Jamie’s father, said in a video unveiling the project.
Flanked by Klein, the 52-year-old added the pair want dads “to write some letters for a book where you can really talk to your sons and communicate with your sons”.
They urged them to share “thoughts and wisdom” they want to pass on, predicting the collection could “be a game changer in how we raise our boys to be the men we would like them to be”.
“They can be funny, they can be sad, they can be moving,” added Klein.
“It doesn’t matter what kind of dad you are, it doesn’t matter what your experience is. You don’t have to be a great writer, you don’t have to write this perfectly. It’s just about writing honestly.”
The window for submissions, which are voluntary and will not result in payment, opened on Oct 15 and runs until Jan 12. Fathers can submit anonymously if they prefer.
Stephen Graham (right) and Owen Cooper in Adolescence.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
For every letter published, Graham and Klein will make a donation to British charity Manup? and social enterprise Dad La Soul, which help young men struggling with mental health.
Bloomsbury will also be making a donation to Manup?.
Klein said the project stemmed from an idea she had when her son turned 13, inviting “men whom we loved and admired to write him a letter”. They shared “what they believe makes a good man and what they wish they’d known when they were younger”.
“We ended up with all these letters with amazing nuggets of wisdom and life lessons for him to sort of carry through now for the rest of his life in becoming a man.” AFP
