- 2 days ago
Go behind the scenes of 'Heartstopper Forever' for an exclusive look at the making of the highly anticipated film. Watch as Kit Connor and Joe Locke reflect on returning to their beloved characters and offer an intimate look at the collaboration, creativity and craftsmanship behind the camera.
HEARTSTOPPER FOREVER premiers on Netflix July 17, 2026.
HEARTSTOPPER FOREVER premiers on Netflix July 17, 2026.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Heartstopper has been an incredible learning curve for me.
00:03A really awesome thing to see it grow.
00:05I love the story of Nick and Charlie,
00:07I love the story of Heartstopper,
00:09and I will be very, very sad to say goodbye.
00:12Getting to see the ending of their story as a fan
00:15is just so satisfying.
00:17It's gonna be weird when it's over
00:19and also, like, say goodbye to these characters
00:21and this has been such a big part of our lives.
00:23Hi, I'm Kit Connor.
00:24And I'm Joe Locke.
00:25Come join us on a day of shooting
00:27the final chapter of Heartstopper.
00:28There we go.
00:39What is today's date?
00:40Today's date...
00:41Oh God, I've got no idea.
00:43I don't know.
00:45Oh, that is a hard question.
00:47You've put me on the spot.
00:48Scoopy too, I don't even know what month it is.
00:50Today's date is the...
00:52Today's date might be the 21st?
00:54It's the 21st of July.
00:56The 21st of July.
00:58The 21st of July, 2025.
01:00This is week seven.
01:02Day 29 of 35 today.
01:06Is that right?
01:07Well, we're doing a six day week
01:08and we're 35 shoot days,
01:10so this would be 30 of 35.
01:12He's the math guy, so I let him do that stuff.
01:15I know it's day 31, so that's all I go on.
01:18I still got it wrong, so I'm about to correct me.
01:21We are sort of over three quarters of the way through the shoot.
01:24We've shot for six weeks and we have one week to go.
01:28Today we're filming scenes at Nick's house,
01:31really focusing on Sarah's 50th birthday party,
01:34looking back into memories that are coming up for Nick about his childhood.
01:40Oh my God, you were so cute.
01:42Were?
01:43I'm not cute anymore.
01:44Yeah, not as cute as this.
01:47I mean, I protect him with my life.
01:50Yeah.
01:52Right, I should go and say hi to some people.
01:55Okay, I'm going to go to Lou and I'll come find you.
01:57Okay.
01:58A lot of the things in their life are kind of changing.
02:03Nick is on the brink of leaving and kind of going to uni and like finishing school.
02:07Charlie is really hitting his stride and he's head boy now
02:11and he's kind of achieving what he never thought he'd be able to.
02:15And they're both kind of trying to adjust to those changes,
02:19starting to worry as to whether or not those changes are going to affect their relationship.
02:24When I first met Alice, I was just a fan walking into the room
02:28and being like, let's make this TV series of this amazing graphic novel that you've done.
02:32We then went on this journey where she became a screenwriter
02:34and she wrote all of season one.
02:35And now she's like fully fledged.
02:37She's exec producing.
02:38She's doing the whole thing, show running.
02:40It's a massive journey.
02:41Half Stopper has always, in my mind,
02:44it's approached trying to capture authentic teenage experiences.
02:48And we've always looked at dark themes and things like Charlie's anorexia and bullying and homophobia.
02:57We are trying to continue on those ideas into the film.
03:01These things don't just wrap up neatly in a little bow at the end of each season
03:05and then are totally forgotten.
03:07Particularly, you know, Charlie experiencing mental illness.
03:10That's something that he will probably always carry with him in some way.
03:14That's just real life.
03:15And that's what I've always set out to try and capture.
03:18This is my first job.
03:19And so I often say that Kit really is like my acting teacher.
03:23He's an old pro.
03:24And so he's everything I know I've learned from Kit, basically.
03:27Me and Patti LuPone.
03:28Yeah, you and Patti LuPone.
03:29Yeah.
03:29Worst people to learn from.
03:31Part Stopper has been an incredible learning curve for me.
03:34Played some of my favorite scenes I've ever played with Joe.
03:37Our big breakup scene we shot like a week ago.
03:40I was kind of nervous about because I think it's just a really big scene.
03:44And I think one of the things that I enjoyed the most in that scene was being off camera.
03:47Getting to see Joe's range, we tried it a couple of different ways.
03:51And we're trying to bounce off each other and just stay really, really present.
03:54I feel like I learned a lot from doing that scene and from watching Joe do it.
04:00While we've been making this film, I have been working on Volume 6 at the same time,
04:04which has never happened before.
04:05I'd always had the book finished before we started.
04:08I had actually already written Volume 6, but I just hadn't drawn it.
04:12The biggest change this film has done to the graphic novel is the final third.
04:17The ending itself hasn't changed. That's kind of been the same.
04:20Because of the limited amount of resources and time and space we have to make a film,
04:25that encourages me to really pinpoint what is important and essential in the story.
04:31It's a really interesting challenge. How do you develop Heartstopper, an episodic TV show, into a movie?
04:37It has to kind of grow into a more cinematic entity.
04:40That's what I've really been doing in terms of the camera, in terms of the shots.
04:44And really in a film, I think you get more time to dive deep into an actor's performance.
04:48I've been working a lot, especially with Kit and Joe, to get to greater psychological depths in their performance.
04:53I think he's been great in trusting us with the characters.
04:57I think he's aware as much as we are that we know these characters so well now.
05:00Definitely takes our opinion and takes our suggestions for the characters very seriously, which is nice.
05:07I'm just so excited because I'm first and foremost a massive fan of Heartstopper, and I love these characters.
05:12Getting to see the ending of their story, we want to have the completeness out there,
05:17and we want it to be something that people go back and watch again and again.
05:20Every time we've come to a new season or this film, we've wanted to challenge ourselves to do things that
05:26we've not done before.
05:27So the film is going to feel very developed in terms of maturity, so the characters themselves are growing.
05:33And with that, we've kind of modulated some of the elements of the story so that it feels a bit
05:37more adult, a bit more mature.
05:38Nick and Charlie are teenagers and they're looking forward to the rest of their lives.
05:43I loved the beginning of the shoot because we were in Bray Studios.
05:47We've made our days perfectly in time. Everyone was happy. I was going to the gym after work. It was
05:52amazing.
05:52Now we're in the chaos of location shooting. You don't know what's going to happen.
05:56You don't know where you're going to be. But from location, you also get this spontaneity
06:00because you have to respond to what's there. You have to respond to what's happening around you.
06:04There's a thousand things that can go wrong at any moment. So location is always more stressful.
06:08What is the biggest challenge of filming on location?
06:12Planes.
06:13Planes.
06:14Cars for planes.
06:15This is what filming hospital is like.
06:17Yeah.
06:17Let's put them right next to Heathrow.
06:19It's clouds and planes.
06:22You've got a plane.
06:24Oh, it's just like making a film.
06:25Yeah.
06:27We're on location at Nick's house, which is great and looks amazing on screen, but it's quite a small location.
06:32There's a lot of people involved.
06:33Yeah.
06:34In a small space.
06:35Very small space.
06:35That's always difficult.
06:37We should have a week of party scenes.
06:38Yeah.
06:39Every day it was a different party, which is interesting.
06:42Yeah.
06:42And especially, Wash is very much in the details.
06:45He really focuses a lot on very small, minute details.
06:50And when you've got a lot of people in the room, those details are going to be right.
06:54We're doing a lovely little scene in a minute with myself and Kit, where I think they get to kind
06:59of,
06:59which, in some way, connect in their own way, I think.
07:02At least that's how I view it.
07:04I thought Dad was your hero.
07:06Yeah.
07:08Heroes and villains.
07:09That's the way your brain works, isn't it?
07:12We had a lot of discussions about whether Nick and David should have a sort of reconciliation,
07:17whether David should have any level of redemption as a character.
07:21I felt like there was a lot of possibility for a lot of nuance.
07:24The effects of Nick's relationship with his father, I felt like that also inherently touched on the relationship with his
07:31brother,
07:31because his brother was raised in the same household by the same parents and came out incredibly differently.
07:37It reflects in the script now.
07:40I think you see a little bit more light and dark in David.
07:42As siblings, you know, my personal view of it is that no matter how bad things get or how much
07:47difficulties you have between you,
07:48deep down there's always a knowledge that they are a sibling and there's a deep desire somewhere to connect in
07:53there for.
07:54You see Nick kind of maybe reaching out a little bit and trying to understand David a little bit,
07:59and then it's kind of misunderstood and they come to blows a little bit,
08:02but there's just maybe what's going wrong for David and for Nick from being unable to connect.
08:07I ultimately felt that there is a new sort of connection between them, but they're never going to be best
08:13friends.
08:14It's a more complex and real situation if David doesn't completely come around and him and Nick don't 100%
08:23heal their relationship.
08:26I get lots of messages from fans about how it's helped people come out, figure out who they are, find
08:33friends, find a community.
08:34And I feel really grateful and proud to have been part of that.
08:38I've had conversations with people, with parents of younger kids, teenagers,
08:42who've said they've watched the show with them and their child has been able to say,
08:46hey, I'm like someone in the show and kind of come out to them in that way.
08:49And that is the ultimate validation of the representation that is in Heartstopper.
08:54It's never forceful, it's never done in any way to be representation, it's just what the show is.
08:59Which I think is therefore the most positive representation because it's not in any way shaped to be that.
09:04They're just the characters.
09:06And I hope that going forward in the industry that can become the norm.
09:09We don't have representation for representation, it's not representation because we are telling these people's stories.
09:13I would hope is that it helps young people find themselves or feel more confident about who they are
09:21and believe that they can find that Heartstoppery joy that is the core essence of what Heartstopper is.
09:28The love and the friendship and the hope and the optimism.
09:33Everyone deserves to feel that about themselves and about their futures.
09:37I think Charlie has a real strong sense of what is wrong and right.
09:41I mean Nick's just an incredibly loving person, gives his everything when it comes to the people that he cares
09:47about
09:47and I think that that's a rather beautiful quality.
09:49I really feel that it's time for it to come to a close.
09:54I think the story will have said all that it needed to say.
09:59I want to end the story on that positive, joyful, uplifting note.
10:06I think it will be a really satisfying, beautiful ending for everyone,
10:10but it won't tell us everything about what's to come for Nick and Charlie in the future.
10:14We'll see you next time.
10:14Bye.
10:15Bye.
10:16Bye.
10:16Bye.
10:16Bye.
10:17Bye.
Comments