Ten years after Skins: How the TV series produced so much British talent

Skins is 10 years old this week and one of its stars is celebrating his first Oscar nomination.

Dev Patel is nominated for best supporting actor at the 2017 Academy Awards for his role in the movie Lion.

He's up against Jeff Bridges, Mahershala Ali, Lucas Hedges and Michael Shannon for the award.

Several actors from Skins have gone on to major Hollywood success, so Dev isn't alone in finding fame after the show.

One former cast member is even a major British pop star now.

Dev Patel's first job after playing Anwar Kharral in series one and two, took him from London to India and to the Oscars with Slumdog Millionaire.

Dev told Newsbeat in 2015 he would never have got the role without Skins.

"My career started off because Danny Boyle's daughter was a fan of the show, that is how I got an audition for Slumdog," he said.

He has since starred in films such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Chappie, before landing the role of Saroo in Lion, a film about a young Indian man searching for his long lost family.

Dev stars in Lion alonside Sunny Pawar, who plays the younger version of his character

Kaya Scodelario was one of the longest-serving members of the cast, appearing in series one to four as Effy Stonem.

She went on to appear in sci-fi thriller Maze Runner and has filmed the next instalment of Pirates of The Caribbean with Johnny Depp, due later in 2017.

Nicholas Hoult was the only member of the main cast who had serious acting experience.

He'd starred in About a Boy with Hugh Grant in 2002.

Nicholas has since gone on to play Beast in three X-Men prequels as well as roles in the Mad Max remake and Kill Your Friends movie adaptation.

Nicholas (left) with castmates James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence and director Bryan Singer

Jack O'Connell, who played Cook in series three and four, was hand-picked by Angelina Jolie to star in her 2014 movie Unbroken.

The 24-year-old also picked up the Rising Star Award at the 2015 Baftas and will star in the lead role in an upcoming movie about fashion designer Alexander McQueen.

Fans of Game of Thrones will be familiar with Joe Dempsie and Hannah Murray who play Gendry and Gilly respectively.

And Olly Alexander, who played photographer Jakob in the final series of the show, is now the frontman of Years & Years.

Here's a much younger Olly talking about his role in the show.

It is, of course, not unusual for an actor from a British television show to find success in Hollywood films.

What is unusual is the amount of stars that were discovered from one single teen drama on a digital channel.

So how were the makers of Skins able to spot so many talented young actors?

Co-creator Bryan Elsley told Newsbeat they made a conscious decision to hold open auditions.

"There are really good kids working from agencies and drama schools but just on that one occasion we decided to go a different way," he explained in 2015.

"We felt if we had young people playing characters the same age as themselves, and those actors weren't too trained, it would have a more natural feel."

Kaya Scodelario with The Truth About Emanuel co-stars Rooney Mara and Jessica Biel

It sounds quite risky, but Bryan said the show was such a small project to begin with, they were able to take that approach.

Jack O'Connell credits the whole team for the actors' future success.

"I think they knew if they were going to identify that genre, that era, that generation, they needed people on the ground level," he said.

"A writing team that understood, they got that right first and then I guess they chose to cast exciting people.

"I feel very fortunate to be involved in the show but I don't think it was a coincidence that we all came through there."

Jack O'Connell with Angelina Jolie and Takamasa Ishihara from the press tour of Unbroken

Piers Wenger is the head of drama at Channel 4 and he thinks it was the opportunities the cast had to stretch themselves that helped nurture their talent.

"They had the opportunity to do properly complex [roles], rather than just two dimensional ones," he said, also in 2015.

"It is extraordinary, in the past soap operas had been the sort of places where young people had been able to do their first job.

"That would have been your only break, but time's are changing.

"I think thanks to shows like Skins, unconventional approaches to casting are becoming more and more common."

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