‘Adolescence’ creator Stephen Graham asks dads to share letters with sons

British co-creator, writer, executive producer and actor Stephen Graham (right) and British actor Owen Cooper attend Netflix's 'Adolescence' event in North Hollywood, California, in May. Photo / Chris Delmas, AFP

Stephen Graham, the creator and star of searing teen murder saga Adolescence, launched an appeal today for fathers around the world to pen and then share letters to their sons.

The British actor is teaming up with psychology lecturer Orly Klein for the project, which will see a selection of the entries published by Bloomsbury in a book called Letters to Our Sons.

It follows Graham’s Emmy-winning Netflix series, a grim cautionary tale of toxic masculinity, and a fictional schoolboy arrested on suspicion of murdering a female classmate with a knife, which became one of the most talked-about TV shows of recent years.

“After my experience of making Adolescence I was really surprised with the amount of dads that came up to me and told me the kind of conversations they’ve been having with their sons,” Graham said in a video unveiling the project.

Flanked by Klein, he added the pair want “dads out there to write some letters for a book where you can really talk to your sons and communicate with your sons”.

They urged them to share “thoughts and wisdom” they want to pass on, predicting the collection could “be a game-changer in how we raise our boys to be the men we would like them to be”.

“They can be funny, they can be sad, they can be moving,” added Klein.

“It doesn’t matter what kind of dad you are, it doesn’t matter what your experience is. You don’t have to be a great writer, you don’t have to write this perfectly. It’s just about writing honestly.”

The window for submissions, which are voluntary and will not result in payment, opened today and runs until January 12.

Fathers can submit anonymously if they prefer.

Graham and Klein will be making a donation for every letter published to the United Kingdom men’s mental health charity Manup? and social enterprise Dad La Soul, which both help young men struggling with mental health.

Bloomsbury will also be making a donation to Manup?.

Klein noted the project stemmed from an idea she had when her son turned 13, inviting “men who we loved and admired to write him a letter”.

They shared “what they believe makes a good man and what they wish they’d have known when they were younger”.

“We ended up with all these letters with amazing nuggets of wisdom in them and life lessons for him to sort of carry through now for the rest of his life in becoming a man.”

-Agence France-Presse