Adolescence star Owen Cooper breaks Kate Winslet's record as youngest individual winner at Actor Awards

Adolescence star Owen Cooper made history when he won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a TV Movie or Limited Series at the Actor Awards, which were known as the SAG Awards until they were rechristened this year.

The 16-year-old became the youngest individual winner in the history of the ceremony, breaking the record previously held by Kate Winslet.

Winslet was 20 when she won her first gong for her portrayal of Marianne Dashwood in Ang Lee's 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, which also starred Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant.

Now her crown has been snatched by Cooper for his chilling turn in Adolescence as a 13-year-old schoolboy who murders a female classmate.

He beat out a category that included Stephen Graham, who played his character's father on the miniseries and also co-created it with Jack Thorne.

Cooper was unable to appear in person in Los Angeles, so presenter Damson Idris accepted the prize on his behalf, quipping that 'I’ll be taking this home, thank you.'

His absence went unexplained, but his movie Cry to Heaven - the next directorial effort from fashion designer Tom Ford - is currently being filmed, per IMDb.

Based on a 1982 novel by Anne Rice, the upcoming motion picture centers a castrated nobleman in 18th century Italy who becomes an opera soprano. 

Adele is making her acting debut in the project, amid a star-studded cast including Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nicolas Hoult, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Thandiwe Newton, Paul Bettany, Ciaran Hinds, Hunter Schafer and Pedro Pascal's trans sister Lux. 

It emerged this past November that principal photography on the picture would take place in Italy and the UK, via Screen Daily - which would make sense of Cooper's inability to be in Los Angeles for this Sunday's awards show. 

Incidentally, Kate Winslet was also unable to be present for her Sense and Sensibility win at the 1996 SAG Awards, which took place during the production of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet movie, in which she played Ophelia.

Owen Cooper's triumph marked the continuation of a history-making awards show streak thanks to Adolescence, which he filmed when he was 14.

Last September, aged 15, he became the youngest male actor ever to win a Primetime Emmy, earning the gong for a supporting role in a limited series or anthology.

He remarked to reporters backstage that the honor 'means so much to me' and to 'my family, people back home,' according to E! News.

Cooper noted that his friends in the UK were 'probably not even awake' at that point, inasmuch as it was 'about four in the morning at home,' but added that the would 'be over the moon' and that he 'can't wait to tell them.' 

Then in January, while studying for his GCSEs, he became the youngest ever recipient of the Golden Globe best supporting actor on television. 

That honor made him the second-youngest Golden Globe winner in history, after The Champ star Ricky Schroder, who was nine when he won new star of the year in 1980.

In his acceptance speech, Cooper recalled: ''What started off as what I thought I might be okay at, I might be awful at - I took a risk and I went to drama classes. I was the only boy there. It was embarrassing but I got through it.'

He added that he was 'still very much an apprentice, I'm still learning every day, I'm still every day learning from the people sat in front of me who have inspired me. I wouldn't be here without you guys. This is mad. What is going on?'

Adolescence has been showered with glory during awards season, not just for Cooper but also Graham and their co-star Erin Doherty.