Joe Locke Defends Straight Actors Playing Gay Roles
The "Heartstopper" star says that, despite playing two prominent gay roles, he wouldn't want to be limited from taking straight roles.
Joe Locke, the 21-year-old who shot to fame portraying Charlie Spring in the Netflix series Heartstopper, says he doesn’t believe it’s “fair” to prevent straight actors from playing LGBTQ characters.
Defending the idea of casting roles regardless of the actors’ sexual orientations, Locke told The Guardian that he believes the focus should be on how actors approach their roles in an effort to portray a character’s experience as authentically as possible.
“I wouldn’t want to not be able to play a straight character, so I don’t think it’s fair to stop someone straight — who can do all the research — from playing a gay character,” he said. “As long as you’re playing a part authentically and with the best intentions — you’re not just playing a stereotype — then go for it.”
Reflecting on his Heartstopper casting experience Locke said, “[t]here’s no way they would have been able to say, ‘Are you gay, otherwise you can’t audition for this part?’ to a 16-year-old. You shouldn’t need to know that.”
Locke says he probably would not have been as open about his sexuality as he has been — including appearing at Pride festivals and giving interviews about queer representation in media — had he not been cast in the series.
“If it wasn’t for Heartstopper, I don’t think I would talk about my sexuality in the media at all,” he told the newspaper.
Locke has concerns about being typecast in particular types of roles, which would severely limit future career opportunities.
“I get a lot of auditions for more gay teenage characters, very similar parts, and, while they’re great, I’ve played two gay characters now,” he says. In addition to Charlie, he’s portraying Teen in the MCU series Agatha All Along. “Not that I would not want to play another gay character, but I want to be a versatile actor, not get stamped.”
The Heartstopper cast was previously enmeshed in the debate around straight actors playing LGBTQ roles after viewers accused actor Kit Connor, who played Charlie’s boyfriend Nick, of “queerbaiting” because he was involved in a relationship with a female off-screen while playing a bisexual character in the show.
The accusations heated up to the point where Connor felt “forced” to come out as bisexual in real life.
“I’m bi. Congrats on forcing an 18 year old to out himself,” he wrote on social media. “I think some of you missed the point of the show. Bye.”
“The whole point of the show is that [queerness] is not always so stereotyped,” Connor later told The Guardian. “There are so many lines in the show where someone goes: ‘Nick Nelson, he’s the straightest guy in the school. He’s the captain of the rugby team so there’s no way [he’s queer].’ Sometimes you just need to give people space.”
Locke has been surprised that Heartstopper‘s premise — a gay romance between the two main characters, both still minors, hasn’t generated more outrage from right-wingers, especially in the United States.
“The world is a very scary place sometimes, and it feels a bit weird that Heartstopper has almost been immune to that,” he said. “A lot of queer shows get a lot of hate from rightwing groups, and Heartstopper doesn’t, and I don’t really understand why. You’ll often hear Trump supporters talking about queer people and queer shows. I want to get hate-tweeted by Donald Trump!”
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