Kit Connor and Joe Locke are ready for their Heartstopper characters to say “F*ck.”
Yes it’s true, after waiting for the more colorful language from Alice Oseman’s comics to be adapted for the screen, the hit teen Netflix series returns for a third season on October 3, with brand new vocab. “Finally, we’ve been trying to say it for years,” Locke tells Teen Vogue. “It does feel a bit like when kids start swearing though, it feels a bit weird.”
Back in Heartstopper season 1, creator and writer Oseman removed instances of swearing from the first script drafts when an EP explained it would give the show an M rating. For season 3, all bets are off.
Connor divulges a story from the set, in which Nick finally puts his homophobic big brother David (Jack Barton) in his place, telling him to “shut the f*ck up.” Director Andy Newbery asked Connor if he could try holding the beloved Nelson family pug, Henry, for the scene.
“He was like, I’m not sure if this is going to work, but let’s try it, because it might defuse the tension a little bit,” Connor tells Teen Vogue. “I was like, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to say this line with any kind of self-confidence and seriousness if I’m just cradling this little pug — who had a tendency to stick his tongue out as well.”
They tried the variation, gave it one take, but it wasn’t meant to be. “I just said, I’m so sorry, Mr. Pug, but I’m gonna put you down, it’s not gonna work,” he says. “There must be some kind of blooper reel of me holding that pug and saying that line, but I just don’t think it felt right.” (Netflix, you know what to do.)
Locke and Connor take on a heavy burden this season, shouldering the mental load of Charlie’s eating disorder and Nick’s stress and depression. The actors took it in stride, both able to shed that weight at the end of each shoot day.
“I never really struggled with shaking things off at the end of the day, which I am very grateful for, because that would be — not great,” says Locke. “But I think also having the whole cast and crew around you in such a nice environment makes it way easier to do your best work and also not put too much of yourself into it.”
The young cast members typically wrap for the day and eat together at their shared apartment complex, so their wind-down always has a soft place to land. Adds Connor, “Like Joe, I don’t think I struggled too much to shake it off, because I feel like these are very natural, human responses to the things that are going on. They’re quite simple emotions, you know, he’s just deeply concerned and upset about his boyfriend’s struggles and mental health.”
Heartstopper is known for its rose-colored worldview, even as characters soldier through the perils of adolescence, but as Connor shares in the show’s press notes, there’s a limit to how much of that you can apply to serious topics before it becomes “counter-intuitive and disrespectful.”
This line felt especially important to Locke, with Charlie’s storyline this season. “It was important to do it respectfully and tell the story without upsetting anyone,” he says. “It’s a difficult and vulnerable topic to have, but important to make sure that we did it right, and I think we did that.”
Oseman consulted with U.K. eating disorder charity Beat, which read the scripts and responded with any moments they felt could be harmful on screen; thankfully, the scripts were well received, according to the show’s press notes.
“[Nick] does experience this real sense of melancholy,” Connor says. “His mental health takes a toll dealing with the struggles that Charlie goes through. He has to learn to not only be a support system for Charlie, but look after himself a little bit, take a breather and realize he has to look after himself if he wants to be able to look after Charlie.”
Amid Charlie’s mounting struggle with disordered eating, he takes back some control, coaching a friend down from a panic attack using his freshly minted therapy techniques. It’s a small win, a hero moment that proves to be so important for Charlie.
“It’s like when the student becomes the teacher,” Locke says. “It's really great to see him at a place where he feels like, not only can he help himself, he can also use it to help other people around him. I think he doesn't realize that he's got that in him until he does it.”
In Locke and Connor’s Teen Vogue cover story last August, Connor remarked that Heartstopper is “setting blueprints for people to know how to treat these delicate situations,” and that’s still the case in season 3. Hayley Atwell joins the cast this season, following in Olivia Colman’s familial footsteps to play Nick’s aunt Diane — a psychiatrist who is responsible for delivering a moment in the TV series that fans have long anticipated from the comic.
“She offers some advice on how to approach interacting with someone who is going through the kind of issues that Charlie is,” Connor says. “Very simple and very stripped-back, surface level things, but also incredibly helpful for people dealing with loved ones or friends, people they know, who are going through these issues.”
With a push towards more hot and heavy scenes this season, intimacy coordinator David Thackeray has had his work cut out for him. “David was very busy this season,” Connor says. "He was in pretty much every day because there was at least someone who was doing a kiss.”
Adds Locke, “[There were] a lot more chats with David this year. It was definitely time for Nick and Charlie to take that step, and we wanted to make sure that it was good and not awkward. It's like a dance when you do those intimate scenes, you choreograph it so clinically,” and for Locke and Connor, “they're definitely not at all intimate in any way, which makes them actually far easier to shoot.”
With Connor’s Broadway run of Romeo + Juliet in full swing and Locke’s MCU debut in Agatha All Along, this might be our last taste of the Truham school lovebirds for the next little while. We’ll savor the bittersweet memories and the intimate moments, and especially the first time Nick and Charlie say “F*ck.”
