'Heartstopper' Star Joe Locke Opens Up: Sometimes 'I Never Want to Play a Gay Character Again'

"Heartstopper" star Joe Locke has the world at his feet with a new season of the hit show coming up as well as a role in the MCU – but he doesn't want to be pigeonholed as a "one-trick pony," the 20-year-old actor told Variety.

The entertainment news outlet noted how Locke was "keen" to dive into the third season of the wildly successful Netflix series (debuting Oct. 3), in which he plays a gay high school student who's out and openly in love with a popular bisexual athlete.

Locke's role in another upcoming project – the MCU TV series "Agatha All Along" (dropping Sept. 18) – will give him an even wider audience, and here too he's playing a gay teen named, coyly, "Teen." What's more, the character won't be "gay between the lines," he'll be out and queer.

"The show never shies away from his queerness," Locke told Variety of Teen, "but it's not a defining feature of his character. It's just one layer of him as a person."

Variety noted that "the character's true identity is a crucial story point on the show" – a character that Locke has previously said is "darker" and "scarier" than his other roles to date – and observed that "fans have already been rabidly theorizing that Locke is playing Wiccan, the out grown-up son of Wanda Maximoff who was first introduced as a child in 2021's 'WandaVision' alongside Hahn's Agatha Harkness."

"Fan speculation has certainly gone off the rails before," Variety added, "but it's not like there's a litany of queer teenage boys in the Marvel canon."

That, as much as anything, only adds to Locke's status as a global queer icon.

"It's one of those things that gets a bit stressful if you think about it too much," Locke admitted to Variety, before going on to address the pressures that come with his particular brand of fame.

"I find all of it quite overwhelming," Locke disclosed. "Sometimes I feel very accepting of it, and some days I want to push it away because I'm afraid of – I don't know – the responsibility of it, almost."

"There has never been anyone quite like Joe Locke," Variety posited, recalling that he came out at age 12 to family, and followed up by coming out "more broadly" a few years later when he was still only 15.

But Locke's authenticity is deepened by the way in which "he is so forthrightly gay," Variety said, "from merrily flipping off homophobic protesters at the 2022 London Pride to using a speech for his hometown Pride event on the Isle of Man that same year to demand the local government lift the ban on gay men donating blood."

Added the magazine: "It's not hyperbole to say that, for many generations of LGBTQ people, Locke sometimes feels like a miracle."

Not so exciting? The prospect of being typecast. Locke lamented to Variety that "there are days that I never want to play a gay character again," adding, "Most of the casting I get sent are for gay characters."

Locke recently made his Broadway debut, playing Tobias Ragg in "Sweeney Todd," a character of uncertain sexuality; he's not explicitly queer, making him arguably straight. But that's a far cry from playing the sort of heterosexual role that a mainstream rom-com or romantic drama might offer.

Locke seemed to yearn for such an opportunity to prove his acting chops, suggesting to Variety that he would relish a role that would demonstrate he's not "a one-trick pony who was just the guy from 'Heartstopper.'"

"Which in itself is maybe a problem of the industry, or a problem of me and my internalized homophobia," Locke went on to reflect.

Locke's talent and popularity could pave the way to a long and varied career, but much of that career is in the young thesp's future at this point. For now, it's Season 3 of "Heartstopper" that seems to be generating the lion's share of excitement around his career, and there's plenty to be eager about. The storyline for his character Charlie – a victim of anti-gay bullying from schoolmates – veered into rough territory in Season 2, with self-harm and an eating disorder coming to light.

"After two seasons, Locke savored the opportunity to dig deeper into Charlie's 'dark places,' and trust that he could find his way back," Variety relayed.

"The not-fun content is almost the most fun stuff to do," Locke commented – though the steamy stuff can be fun, too, despite the series avoiding overt sexual activity between Locke and his co-lead, Kit Connor. The characters have so far been limited to kissing.

It's one way in which the show, which tends to stay grounded in realistic story points, seems artificial, Variety noted, and Locke agreed.

"I mean, we always joke that if it was actually real, they'd be in the bathroom just ... yeah," Locke told the magazine of the two main characters' coyly sexless relationship. "The mushy part became old hat. Me and Kit, we were doing kissing scenes every day. We were like, 'Right, come here – let's do it.'"

Season 3 promises to open that particular door. Saying that "Heartstopper" "is growing up," Locke offered the tidbit that "The second half of the season is about sex."

Watch a teaser for "Heartstopper" Season 3 below.