[This story contains spoilers up to episode three of Adolescence.]

Everyone’s talking about Adolescence, and Erin Doherty knows why.

The four episodes of Netflix‘s latest miniseries (hailed as “perfection,” a “masterclass” and “powerful TV“) are each filmed in one, consecutive shot, leaving audience members flummoxed at the stellar acting and trying to make sense of how director Philip Barantini did it.

The script from Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials) and Stephen Graham (Peaky Blinders) tells the story of Jamie (Owen Cooper), a 13-year-old boy who is accused of stabbing a girl from school to death. Viewers are taken through the grisly process from start to finish: his shocking arrest and first police interview, the detectives attempting to put the pieces of the case together, a child psychologist sent to assess Jamie and the family forced to re-evaluate every parental decision that led to this life-altering event.

Graham and Christine Tremarco play Jamie’s parents with Ashley Walters and Faye Marsay as the cops searching for a motive. Doherty, known for her work alongside Graham in Disney+’s boxing drama A Thousand Blows, stars as psychologist Briony, whose thrilling third episode of the series with Cooper — in his first acting role ever — is a stunner.

“Part of me wants to say, ‘Yes, it was the most terrifying thing ever,’” Doherty tells The Hollywood Reporter about shooting the incredibly tense scene in one go. “But actually, no. I was literally living the dream.”

The show is turned on its head when the impact of Jamie’s time on the internet is realized. His radicalization from the confines of his own bedroom is ultimately the family’s undoing: online, the rise of incel culture and misogyny have bred young men — and in this case, children — capable of committing horrendous acts of violence. And, yes, Andrew Tate is referenced.

All of a sudden, Thorne and Graham pose a question all parents would be horrified to have to answer: what if your child’s ideologies were manipulated by creators you can’t police, and shaped a person who could carry out a heinous crime?

“It’s there, we can’t deny it, and no matter how awful and disturbing it is, we would be doing ourselves a disservice as a human race to continue to ignore it and avoid it,” Doherty says about the subject matter Thorne and Graham have decided to tackle. “But I don’t actually think the show poses any answers and I don’t think it can, because I don’t think we have them yet.”

The British star talks to THR about how Cooper has reignited her love of acting, whether Briony suspects Jamie of being guilty from the get-go and why the episode’s final burst of emotion from her character was actually the easiest part of the entire shoot: “The minute that he left the room, I got to breathe. It felt like some level of suffocation had left the room.”

Erin, how did this role come about for you? I know you and Stephen are frequent co-stars. Was it an immediate ‘yes’?

Basically, we were literally on set of A Thousand Blows and I was just like, “Out of curiosity, what you up to at the minute?” We were approaching the end and we’d been on it for a year. So I was like, “What’s going on?” and he started talking to me about this project that he was co-writing with Jack Thorne. And I love that man. I was lucky enough to do a play with him in one of the first couple of years out of drama school. So I knew what Adolescence would be and I knew it was going to be so beautifully done and treated with care. I knew that they were going to try do the one-shot thing. I was like, “That is an actor’s dream.” [Stephen] knew that I was, obviously, absolutely gagging to watch this thing. But I never said [I wanted to be in it]. I was just like, “Oh my god, that’s going to be amazing.” Then we wrapped that job, and a couple of months later, Stephen sent me a voice note, like: “You need to pick up your phone. I want to talk to you about something.” And it just went from there.

I’m still pinching myself. That never happens — to witness the birth of something. Because when we were talking about it, they hadn’t even really written it. [Stephen] was like, “I’ve got this idea. I’ve been reading all this stuff in the news.” And he was like, “I just need to make this thing.” So to genuinely witness the inception of this thing and getting to the point of people watching it, it’s actually surreal. I’ve never been a part of a project this intense before. I actually don’t really know how I feel about the whole thing. First of all, the subject matter is really resonating with people. And secondly, the one-take stuff is just blowing people’s minds.

Cooper and Doherty star in ‘Adolescence.’ Netflix

You said it’s an actor’s dream — a one-shot. Is it exciting or scary? It’s kind of like theater.

That’s exactly it. The skill of those creatives… We shot our episode first, and by the time we’d started even in that first week of rehearsal, Phil [Philip Barantini] was showing me the rehearsal footage of them practicing these drone shots. And I was like, “No one has ever attempted anything like this.” You just knew that you were a part of something really special, even from day one.

Part of me wants to say, “Yes, it was the most terrifying thing ever.” But actually, no. I was literally living the dream. I’ve grown up doing theater, and I love it. It has my heart. There’s just something about everyone being in a room watching this thing, whether you’re a part of it or not. There’s just something electric about that. And I was like, this is going to marry those two things beautifully. From my experience anyway, you can only really learn on the job with the screen stuff. Because no matter how many years you do at drama school, you just don’t know. So I just started this love affair with screen acting. And when I started to clock that people like Phil were starting to play around with the format, I thought that is going to be my absolute heaven on earth. And it really lived up to everything I wanted it to be. There’s something so freeing about going “From the minute that they call ‘action’, it’s yours.” And to have that trust in your instincts and your other actors is just the most freeing and exciting [thing]. There is fear there, but you learn to love it.

So how did it work — how much did you and Owen rehearse beforehand? How much was improv? I was blown away because you have to handle everything that’s thrown at you. No one’s calling ‘cut.’

We rehearsed for two weeks. We got the choreography down of: “OK, well, this is how we’re gonna [move].” We had to [figure that out] so it could be really organic. And then we really nailed it down. But actually, I think in hindsight, what Phil was really doing in those rehearsal days was collectively bringing us all together so that if anything did change or veer off of the path that we had made for each other, you would naturally all move as one to rectify that. And actually that then became the beauty of those specific takes. That’s what he was prepping us for, I see it now. He’s just so clever. So he was essentially paving the way for each take to be its own beautiful thing and for us not to be worried or rigid.

There were like moments of improv within it. But that only happened on the last two days. I think once we knew that we had got it down and we had something in the can that they were happy with, on our last two shoot days, we really just threw it at the wall and saw what happened. And they ended up choosing our last take. There’s something to be said in that. I think why this show is so successful and why you can’t take your eyes off it is because they genuinely have captured this dangerous, live thing. And Phil knew that from day one… He wanted to capture the nuances.

So was it just one camera man circling you both?

Yeah! So for our episode, we actually only had one camera man. Because I wasn’t there for the rest of the shoot, it was only in post-production I got to see the other stuff, and I was completely blown away. But for us, it was just one, and he followed me through the corridors. And then from the minute we were in that room, he was just revolving around us. That’s what the rehearsal process was about: him finding the best timing for moments within the script — when he wanted to be on Owen, when he needed to be on me. It was literally just the camera floating around the room, and we just had to forget about it. It’s crazy. After those two weeks of rehearsals, it was like they just blended into nothing. It was just me and Owen.

It’s amazing that you say they used the last take. It speaks to how comfortable you got riffing off one another. And this is Owen’s first job, right?

Yeah. There was a blessing in disguise… I think because he had had no other experience, he had nothing to compare it to, so he didn’t present as being nervous in any way! We needed those two weeks of rehearsals to really get it in our bones. But actually, Owen as an actor, he could have been doing it for 50 years and no one would have known any different. He just has the ability to go to these places and allow himself to just free fall in the moment. Honestly, some actors dream about achieving that.

That was the overwhelming gift from this whole project for me. I hope that I gave him what he gave me. He just reignited that necessity. I think kids surrender to the moment so much easier than adults do. And it really reignited that love of what I do, and actually the art form in its purest form. I was just like, “Wow. This is it. It’s just you and me in this room, and that’s enough.” You can put so many other things on top of storytelling, but actually having the confidence to just go, “We’re gonna tell this story in this room.” It’s really inspiring. That’s all we need.

Owen Cooper makes his acting debut in ‘Adolescence.’ Netflix

To get into the specifics of your character, I feel like she was amazingly written. I could see her whole backstory. She could have a show of her own — a meticulous psychologist, sometimes cold, but with Owen often warm. What relationship were you trying to establish?

It didn’t take any effort to fall in love with her. I want to fall in love with every character that I get to play, but with her, it was instantaneous. I’ve gone through the whole therapeutic journey myself, and I have such admiration and respect for that profession and what it requires to be good at it. I think it’s something that doesn’t get enough limelight in that sense. So I was so determined to really highlight the mental agility that is needed for these people to be good at their job and also to portray the emotional exhaustion, the toll that it takes. I’ve walked away from this job with even more appreciation for what it is that these people do. I wanted to bring that to the table. I sat down with my old therapist.

It was just so exciting for me. I’ve got a younger brother. He’s 11 years younger than me, so I’ve really witnessed him go through adolescence himself and the hardships of what it means to navigate that world. And I think it was necessary for me to bring that level of hope into our relationship, Briony and Jamie’s. It wouldn’t have hit home as hard as it did when he finally reveals to her that he had committed this horrendous crime. That emotional intensity of their connection needed to be there from the start in order to have the complete fall at the end. Also, he’s such a lovely guy. I genuinely was rooting for him as Erin, wanting him to get through this. Because obviously, as much as I enjoyed it, you can’t help but feel the stakes of what it means to get to the end of this one-shot experience. So it was loaded with that. Therapists and clients, they do create such strong bonds, and that was so important to me to depict.

At the beginning of the session, does Briony suspect that Jamie is guilty?

It had to be there. It was unavoidable, considering all the evidence that she would have had, and this is their last meeting, so I think she knows. She’s the middle man between Jamie and the court and the police. She’s getting all this information from everywhere. Or what I chose to play anyway, was that, if anything, it was like this was the last little morsel of hope that she had for Jamie. He could give her something that may, for whatever reason, wipe the slate clean. And she can go, “He’s a good kid.” Because I think we’re so much more complex than just good and evil, and that is what I think she was going into that room with. She can see the good in this kid, but it’s also undeniable that the evidence points to only one outcome. I wanted to hold on to the complexity of her.

Her questions are essentially about putting him at ease so he feels like he can say what he needs to say. He’s obviously a very guarded boy, so she needs to get him to relax. That’s part of the the mental agility of her to be able to go, I’m gonna have to place this question in between these two very seemingly meaningless sentences. She has to have that level of skill. Honestly, I couldn’t have shot this more than we did. We shot it twice a day, with lunch in between, and the level of focus that it takes to get through it…

You used the term “mental agility” which I think is really fitting. We see that release of emotion when Jamie is removed from the room at the end. Is that fear of Jamie, or her losing that last morsel of hope?

It was horrible. It was awful, but also it was so necessary. And that part of the scene was actually the easiest to film, because I’d kept a lid on it for so long. And actually, as Erin, as an actor, I am a very emotional, outwardly expressive human being. [Laughs.] So the hardest part was keeping the lid on it, remaining guarded, whilst also trying to have a heart and connect with him. So the minute that he left the room, I got to breathe. It felt like some level of suffocation had left the room. It was just this emotional vomit, in a way.

So yeah, I think it was a concoction of loss of hope, but also the reality hitting of of what this boy had done and what she had just been in the room with. There are so many moments along the journey of this episode where she is confronted with something quite dangerous and terrifying. But I don’t think she allows herself to fully become conscious of it until he leaves the room, because she can’t take off that professional hat, in a sense. So it’s only once he leaves that all of those like flashbacks of what he had said, or things he had physically done, kind of hit her in the face all at once. And it’s this terrifying understanding of what people can present versus what they’re containing.

This subject matter — the rise of incel culture, young men and boys being radicalized by misogynistic, toxic men like Andrew Tate from the comfort of their own bedroom — has been bubbling under the surface for a long time when it comes to television. I wanted to ask about what resonates with you, and what Jack and Stephen’s big takeaway was.

I feel like what they were trying to do is ask those questions, shine that light on this terrifying subject matter that. As you say, it’s been bubbling away. It’s there, we can’t deny it, and no matter how awful and disturbing it is, we would be doing ourselves a disservice as a human race to continue to ignore it and avoid it. I think all [Thorne and Graham] are doing and all they can do is highlight these issues and go, “Let’s have the conversation.” But I don’t actually think the show poses any answers and I don’t think it can, because I don’t think we have them yet.

The starting point for anything is awareness, and that’s what this show is doing. It’s just going, “OK, let’s be brave now and dive into this and get the conversation going, and hopefully we can go from here.” But for me, I don’t even have kids and what I’ve taken away from it, literally, for the last couple of days with my friends, girlfriend, my family, all I’ve been talking about is the show but also the reality of bringing up kids. I feel like that is what people are talking about. Like, what the hell do we do? It’s already infiltrating my conversations about how to navigate it. So I can’t even imagine what parents are saying, and parents of young children particularly. But the biggest insight is that even my generation, who are yet to begin that chapter of their lives… it’s already getting the ball rolling there. So I feel like it’s done its job, because we’re already like, “What the hell do we do?”

That cluelessness in the show is so palpable too. The last take with Stephen on Jamie’s bed…

And when [Graham and Tremarco] say, “I think we just have to accept that we could have done better.” That bit, for me, that’s it. We all want to be good parents and I do have the faith and the hope that we are all going to try to be. But what this show is saying, and what it needs to say, is sometimes it’s not as simple as that. We can’t treat it as simply as that, because this thing that we’re holding in our hands can follow kids into their bedroom, and that’s the issue. You can be the best parent in the world, but we still need to figure out how we broach this.