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Love Adolescence's one-take episode format? Thank Hollywood A-lister Brad Pitt
Pitt (who is a producer on the show) came to Adolescence co-creator Stephen Graham with the idea after seeing his movie, Boiling Point
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It's only April, but Netflix's Adolescence is already shaping up to be the platform's biggest hit of 2025. With the series's mind-boggling viewership and talks of a follow-up, you could be forgiven for forgetting that one of the show's producers is none other than Brad Pitt. However, we'd humble suggest you remember that fact now, not just to understand the star power behind the incel crime drama... but because the series's one-take format was Pitt's idea.
Let us explain.
In case you didn't know, the relationship between Pitt and Adolescence star/producer Stephen Graham goes back quite a ways, with the two of them appearing in Guy Ritchie's 2000 crime comedy Snatch. 21 years after that movie premiered, Pitt was in the audience for the Stephen Graham-starring kitchen drama Boiling Point, which was formatted to tell a story in a single take. After seeing that movie, the former came to the latter with the desire to produce something like it, as Graham tells The New York Times:
"Brad Pitt said, 'I want to make a TV show the same as Boiling Point," said Adolescence's star and co-creator, "It was then about what we were going to make it about."
Already, this is a pretty interesting tidbit about one of the most popular (and some would say, necessary) shows of the year, but it's even more tantalizing in the context of a recent Brad Pitt/Netflix news story: that is, that Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood is getting a Netflix follow-up. Officially, the creative forces behind the project will be Tarantino himself (who penned the script) and David Fincher (who will direct), but with Pitt's status as a possible returning star (and, you know, one of Hollywood's most in-demand A-listers), he may just have some influence on how the show turns out.
And if Adolescence's episode format is any indication, Stephen Graham's previous work may just influence that.
Adolescence is streaming now on Netflix.
Fade to credits, then a pop-up of what to watch read next - just like Netflix:
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