Agatha All Alongside’s Joe Locke Is Thrilled to Be Taking part in a Campy Marvel Witch

Whereas Marvel followers nonetheless don’t know precisely who Joe Locke is taking part in in Agatha All Along—formally his character’s title is “Teen,” although hypothesis has narrowed it down a lot more than that—the Heartstopper breakout may be very assured about what he’s bringing to the desk in the WandaVision spin-off. In a brand new interview, he talked about taking part in a queer character within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and what it means to him each personally and professionally.

Chatting with Variety, Locke says Agatha All Alongside has made him much less involved about being typecast as a homosexual character, as a result of the position he has is so complicated and multi-faceted. “The present by no means shies away from his queerness, however it’s not a defining characteristic of his character,” he instructed the commerce. “It’s only one layer of him as an individual.”

Elsewhere within the article, Agatha Harkness herself, Kathryn Hahn, remembers how quickly after she began working with Locke she was impressed together with his sense of self. “He corrected me early on, as a result of I stated, ‘’hese witches and this beautiful wizard,’” she recalled to Selection. “And he was like, ‘No, we’re all witches.’ That basically caught with me.”

Although Locke considers being in a Marvel sequence “essentially the most pinch me factor,” he’s additionally able to face naysayers—even fellow members of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood—who’ve taken from the Agatha All Alongside trailers that his efficiency as “Teen” (or whoever he finally ends up being) will likely be a “campy homosexual stereotype.” He defined why that didn’t sit proper with him.

“It actually irritated me as a result of I used to be like, ‘You’ll be able to’t ask for genuine casting after which be upset when you have a camp character’ … I’m absolutely conscious that the Marvel fandom is way much less good than the Heartstopper fandom,” he stated. “There’s going to be lots of people that simply hate the whole lot in regards to the character and the whole lot about what I’ve executed with it, and I simply should be OK with that.”

And if Agatha All Alongside contains musical numbers, as has been rumored, Locke’s theatrical skills will are available in additional useful; earlier this yr, he starred as Tobias Ragg—following Stranger Issues‘ Gaten Matarazzo—within the Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Avenue.

Agatha All Alongside, which additionally stars Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn, Patti LuPone, Debra Jo Rupp, Emma Caulfield Ford, and Aubrey Plaza, was created by Jac Schaeffer (Black Widow, WandaVision). It should run a complete of 9 episode, and can debut with a two-episode premiere September 18 on Disney+.

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