Heartstopper boss: “There was never any option but to cast authentically”

By David Craig

Published: Wednesday, 13 April 2022 at 12:00 am

The team behind Netflix’s Heartstopper have opened up on the exhaustive casting process behind the show, including the challenge of finding performers who could authentically represent characters from the graphic novels.

Writer Alice Oseman penned the webcomic that inspired this much-anticipated young adult drama, with the story primarily focusing on the blossoming romance between schoolboys Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) and Charlie Spring (Joe Locke).

However, the supporting cast features characters from across the LGBTQ+ community, in a move that makes this one of the more inclusive projects to land on streaming in recent memory.

“I knew that I wanted Heartstopper to have a diverse range of characters and it wasn’t just focused on these two boys,” Oseman said in an interview with Attitude. “Lots of people were reading the story and I wanted people to feel they could see themselves in it.”

While there are examples in the past of straight actors being cast in LGBTQ+ roles and cisgendered people portraying trans characters, that idea was at no point considered for Heartstopper.

Executive producer Patrick Walters explained: “There was never any option but to cast authentically. But there was also a worry if we’d find these people, and we knew that if we didn’t find them, we couldn’t make the show.”

Fortunately, the right people were found, with TikTok influencer Yasmin Finney tapped to play the role of Elle, a young trans woman who moves from an all-boys school to an all-girls school at the start of the series.

“The more that we can open up the doors for queer people, and for people who aren’t cis then that’s when we can have a more inclusive industry,” Finney said.