It’s not typical for an unknown actor to gain so much attention before their show has even aired (the day before Heartstopper is out, Locke has 188,000 followers). Then we were on set one day and Kit whispered it to me and I started screaming.” On the day his own casting was announced in the press, Locke went from 1,000 Instagram followers to 15,000. Then he was like, ‘You got it.’ And I just screamed again.” A few months later, during filming, Locke discovered that Olivia Colman was the mystery star who’d joined the cast of mostly newcomers. “They kept her a secret for ages. I knew he wouldn’t have asked if I was sitting down if I hadn’t got it. “He goes, ‘Are you sat down?’ And I just screamed. “I had a phone call from my agent,” Locke tells me.
When the lead star of Netflix’s fizzing new hit drama, Heartstopper, discovered he had been selected out of 10,000 teenagers to play schoolboy Charlie Spring, he let out a high-pitched yelp.
