How Stephen Graham Carried the Weight of Adolescence

Photo: Ben Blackall/Netflix

Spoilers follow for the Netflix series Adolescence, all four episodes of which began streaming on March 13.

You may think you know what a Stephen Graham performance is going to be like. The British character actor who started his career working with gangster-mythmakers Guy Ritchie and Martin Scorsese can be relied upon for a certain amount of machismo. Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire, an underground crime lord and boxer in A Thousand Blows, a neo-Nazi play-acting at being a father in This Is England...