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At the Emmys in September, Adolescence all but swept the board. It won best limited series. It won awards for writing, for directing, for cinematography. Three of its actors – Stephen Graham, Erin Doherty and Owen Cooper – all took home awards. But Adolescence also earned another Emmy for a craft that often goes overlooked: best casting.
Shaheen Baig was the woman responsible for casting Adolescence, and her Emmy is tucked away in the top right corner of the screen as we chat about her year over Zoom. She is mortified as soon as she realises this, immediately re-angling her webcam to keep it out of sight, lest anyone mistakes it for a boast.
Still, there’s no question that the award was deserved. As the woman who populated Adolescence with actors, Baig is ultimately the woman who discovered Owen Cooper. Despite its incendiary subject matter and technical wizardry, Cooper was the beating heart of the series. So revelatory was his performance – in turn heartbreakingly vulnerable and incandescently vicious – that it was hard to believe he was just 14 years old at time of filming, let alone that this was his first ever role.
Baig nods. “He did exceptionally. He had this wonderful quality on screen. There was a real innocence to him visually, and a clarity which I thought was just wonderful.”
Cooper’s discovery came as the result of a highly targeted six-month search for someone to fill the role. Baig knew that the show would be filmed in the north of England, so that was where she and her team set to work.
“I chose five cities,” she says. “We then thoroughly researched those cities. We created databases. We looked at schools, youth groups, art groups, music groups. We talked to people that ran the clubs.”
Once she was convinced that she had a good grasp of the cities, she put a flyer together. “We sent it out on social media, and all the places that we had spoken to, and then we essentially street cast,” she says. “We go, we talk to people, we hand out flyers, we engage with people. It’s a lot of work, and it takes time, but that’s how you get the best results.”
After this phase, Baig and her team received 600 audition tapes to sift through, and gradually went about whittling them down. “In the first rounds, we got people to do little improvs, and then every subsequent stage became a little bit more sophisticated. We would see people in the room, do a bit of improvisation with them. Then we’d recall, get them to work from script, until we got down to five.”
Baig is keen to stress that every one of the final five candidates was “brilliant”, and they all ended up with roles on the show. Nevertheless, Cooper stood out. “Owen had this ability to really listen and connect with Stephen,” she says. “But also he wasn’t scared of repetition. We went over scenes time after time, trying different things. We wanted to push him to see where he could go, and he had this extraordinary focus for somebody so young. I mean, that’s a rare find.”
This year has been a banner year for Baig. In the past, she has cast everything from Black Mirror to Giri/Haji to Peaky Blinders to Sherwood. But in 2025, in addition to Adolescence, she was responsible for A Thousand Blows, Toxic Town, Man Like Mobeen, The Death of Bunny Munro and BBC Three’s beautiful and underappreciated Just Act Normal. As soon as you notice her name in the credits of a film or TV show, you can immediately be assured of its quality.
“I’m always working,” she says with a smile. “I’ve always been a bit of a workaholic, but I think Adolescence has made me more visible. I’d normally run a mile from doing anything like this interview. I’m quite shy, and I find these things quite difficult. But actually it’s really good to talk about casting, because it makes the profession more visible.”
One of the issues with making filmed entertainment, be it movies or TV, is that people often assume that a director or showrunner controls everything from the top down. Is there a sense that this is changing, at least when it comes to casting?
“It’s a collaboration, but like every other department – like a cinematographer, an editor, a costume designer – a huge amount of work and skill goes into creating a cast,” she says. “I think it’s really great that it’s suddenly being recognised.” This is certainly true when it comes to awards. Bafta recently started recognising casting on awards night, and the Oscars will feature it as a category from next year.
“It’s great that the craft is being finally recognised as an essential element of film-making,” she continues. “Because it really is. If you don’t have the actors, you can’t make the thing.”
Part of the job, she says, is being able to intuit the vision of the person in charge. “It’s my job to find the tone of a project,” she explains. “Some directors are more visual than others. Some are very focused on the script. Directors have all got different strengths. I like to work really closely with the director. Sometimes you don’t always agree with one another, but I have to find a way to make it work, because I’m not the director of the film. I want my directors to have the best experience they can with the cast that we’ve put in front of them. So I will always find a way to make it work, because I think I want to do what’s best for the film.”
After starting her career as a production assistant in the 1990s, Baig found herself being drawn more and more towards actors. She eventually became an assistant to Debbie McWilliams, the James Bond casting director , before setting up shop on her own at the start of the century.
However, during this time she noticed an imbalance in the industry. “There weren’t really many other people like me,” she says. “Working-class, from Birmingham, mixed race. Even now, it’s not really a very representative industry, and that has to change.” And so she began to work with Open Door, an organisation that seeks to help young actors who lack the resources and financial means to attend drama school.
“Being able to go to drama school is a privilege, and it can feel quite a long way away for many, many people,” she says. “Applying for drama school is expensive. Travel to your auditions is expensive. Open Door has worked really hard to break down some of those barriers. We work with people on movement, on voice, on auditions. We pair people with buddies, so they have somebody to connect to who has got a career. It’s all about making sure there are people in our industry that are recognisable to you.”
Happily, it’s paying off. “I’ve really noticed a difference,” she says. “Open Door has been going for nearly 10 years, and I’ve seen a real change in intake at drama schools. So many of our students have been successful and are working and have got really good careers.”
Baig’s 2026 looks set to be just as busy as this year. Already on the slate is Daisy Haggard’s Scottish-set thriller Maya. “The scripts are stunning,” she says. “Beautiful. She’s such a gifted writer.” Then there’s Riz Ahmed’s Bait, about a struggling actor who lands a big role, and the upcoming Peaky Blinders film. But, still, surely there’s still time to luxuriate a little in the success of Adolescence.
“I’m so happy that Warp Films are getting their flowers,” she says, deflecting. “They have been doing brilliant work for a really long time. They’re great people. They care about people. They’ve got a proper moral code. They’re great role models. Stephen Graham’s a great role model, too. It has all just been a really positive experience.”
More than anything, though, you sense that Shaheen Baig is really just thrilled for Owen Cooper, and all the things he’s bound to achieve in his career.
“He’s looking fantastic,” she says, like a proud mum. “There are a lot of very fancy photoshoots with him at the moment.” She pauses for a second, then adds. “He’s still got to do his GCSEs, though. That’ll bring him down to earth.”
