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WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif.<\/strong> \u2013 Owen Cooper<\/a> hasn\u2019t had thoughts of EGOT.<\/a> He\u2019s hardly had time to develop that kind of ambition in his short time as an actor. But, presented with the idea, he\u2019s intrigued. And amused.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that the Emmy, the Grammy, the Oscar and the Tony?\u201d he asks, with a laugh. \u201cI\u2019ve got E, so I want it.\u201d<\/p>\n Cooper does, in fact, have \u201cE.\u201d He won an Emmy Award<\/a> this year, at 15, for his astonishing-for-any-age performance as a 13-year-old suspected of a killing in Netflix’s \u201cAdolescence.\u201d<\/a> It was his first screen appearance, and his first performance that wasn\u2019t for parents. <\/p>\n Still just 16, he’s now been named one of The Associated Press\u2019 Breakthrough Entertainers of 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n Speaking to the AP while sitting on a balcony at a West Hollywood hotel, Cooper concedes he has no idea how he\u2019d ever win a Grammy, though he loves music (Oasis, Stone Roses). And a Tony feels daunting, though the one-take episodes of \u201cAdolescence\u201d required the work of a play.<\/p>\n \u201cEven an Oscar,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t know how I\u2019ll win an Oscar.\u201d<\/p>\n But, more broadly, Cooper knows what he does want to do. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first started doing drama lessons, like I was just, I just didn\u2019t want to do it,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to look like an idiot in front of all these people. Now, I\u2019m like, \u2018I want to be one of those actors that are just fearless.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Cooper becomes Oscar-eligible in 2026, when he makes his film debut in director Emerald Fennell’s<\/a> buzzy adaptation of \u201cWuthering Heights,\u201d starring Margot Robbie<\/a>. Cooper plays the younger version of Jacob Elordi’s<\/a> Heathcliff. He doesn’t share scenes with the leading stars, but they interacted plenty. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d always be going on set and they\u2019d always just be coming off so I\u2019d speak to Jacob loads,\u201d he says. \u201cI would always be next to Margot in the makeup chair so I speak to them quite a lot and they’re really nice people.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time the movie’s shoot was done, Cooper was a star in his own right. \u201cAdolescence\u201d and all its acclaim arrived during filming of the Emily Bront\u00eb adaptation. <\/p>\n After the ordinary, modern environs of \u201cAdolescence\u201d and the other series he\u2019s shot, \u201cFilm Club\u201d \u2014 which premiered in October on BBC Three in the United Kingdom and is not yet available to watch in the U.S. \u2014 he was stunned by the setting, and the outfits, of \u201cWuthering Heights.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe attention to detail in that film was just insane,\u201d he says. \u201cObviously I\u2019ve not been in it a long time but it just blew my mind, like the set and just everything about it is just mad.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019ll remain in the distant past for his next film, director Tom Ford’s \u201cCry to Heaven,\u201d<\/a> set in 18th century Italy and starring Nicholas Hoult<\/a>, Aaron Taylor-Johnson<\/a> and, in her acting debut, Adele<\/a>. <\/p>\n Cooper’s clearly a prodigy, but he’s no lab-grown child star or nepo baby. He’s the youngest of three brothers from a non-industry family, raised in Northern England’s Warrington, between Manchester and Liverpool. His accent has notes of both cities, but he’s a devoted Liverpool<\/a> supporter; soccer was the center of all his childhood ambitions<\/a> \u2014 and most of his waking hours. <\/p>\n \u201cI grew up near, like, a park so I would be on there since 8 in the morning to midnight just playing football,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was just everything. I didn\u2019t care about anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n Acting became a secondary hobby when he began classes at 12 at Manchester’s Drama MOB. But he loved it, and the school drew something special out of him that led to his landing \u201cAdolescence\u201d over hundreds of other candidates. <\/p>\n Stephen Graham<\/a>, the series co-creator who won his own Emmy for playing Cooper\u2019s father, has called him \u201cthe talent of a generation\u201d and \u201cthe next Robert De Niro<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n On that note, Cooper says he wants to work with \u201cgods of the game\u201d like Martin Scorsese<\/a>, Quentin Tarantino<\/a> and David Fincher. But he doesn’t want heavy drama to define him. <\/p>\n \u201cI want to do horror, I want to do, like, a superhero, I want to do sci-fi,\u201d he says. \u201cI just want to do everything.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n