Press picture – Heartstopper season 3.
BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, invited Heartstopper creator Alice Oseman and producer Patrick Walters to discuss their upcoming movie, Heartstopper Forever. Host, Fisayo Akinade, who plays everyone’s favourite art teacher, Mr Ajayi, hosted the 90 minute event. Fisayo quickly proved to be an entertaining and gracious host, starting the event by confirming he was their favorite cast member, giving us all the first laugh of the day.
We learned that Fisayo’s favorite scene was from Paris and we watched the fun dialogue outside the Eiffel Tower where the teachers talked about tickets for the elevator. Then we see the Paris squad climb the stairs up and we get Nick’s epic – “Jealous?” line. Being one of my favorite scenes, it was lovely to watch it on the big screen.
How did Heartstopper start then?
Charlie and Nick play a small role in Alice’s first book, Solitaire, which tells Tori Spring’s story. While done with the book, Alice wasn’t done with Tori’s brother Charlie and his beautiful love story with Nick. She decided to look deeper into that and during the ride the format turned into a comic book. Alice was told there was no market for comic books, so she had to publish it on her own, and that’s exactly what she did.
Patrick was the first of them to approach the other, after the first Heartstopper volume, with the wish of creating something more. Patrick had already (in his own words) pestered director Euros Lynn for a long time. Euros was interested in a fresh direction for his career and the Heartstopper script got his interest.
Did you know from the start what you wanted the format of the screen adaption to be?
-I know I wanted four seasons from the start and I said that I wanted it early, in an interview, Alice laughs, but both she and Patrick reassures that they were really happy with getting one season.
The casting was a combination of open calls and the traditional casting. Kit and Corinna were found early, Kit actually auditioned for the role of Charlie, but then Daniel Edwards (the casting director) threw a ball at Kit, who catched it and threw it back, making Daniel scream out loud of happiness – they had found their Rugby king, Nick Nelson!
Fisayo: how was it seeing characters you drew and written come to life?
-It was strange. The last reading was a chemistry reading and we all met up. (Due to Covid everything had been online before.) We had the three leading pairs meeting in their pairs and one reading with all of the six leads, Alice tells us.
Alice and Patrick were just so happy with everything, he remembers and continues: Euros who had more experience was harder on them and pushed them to do the scenes differently, and change things and try different ways, and I think that made them bond.
The next clip we see is when Imogen tells Tara she and Nick are a thing and makes sure Tara is not invested in Nick, including the epic – “I’m an ally!”
Fisayo summarises into: Rhea being a genius. And who can disagree?
After filming season one they went on with their lives not expecting the level of success that came. Netflix wanted more and Alice tells us how exciting it was with getting two more seasons at once.
Patrick talked to Netflix about shooting in Paris, trying to make them understand it would be quite expensive. At the same time he was sitting on a train seeing a passenger dressed like Kit/Nick, with the smiley tattoo on their hand. It was surreal and felt intended all at once.
The second season was a different experience with more pressure from deadlines, the script wasn’t done in advance, and doing the puzzle with the cast’s schedule was hard already, and now they needed to be done in four months.
Patrick mentions how Alice always included the weather in the comics very detailed and that to give them a limited time for shooting.
-Everyone’s obsessed with the leaves and what they’re doing… he says with a laugh.
Fisayo lets us know he was afraid to be replaced because of being in a play at the same time they shoot season 2 and 3. The Paris days seem to have worked out at minute precision for him. He turns to them, apologising for being so successful, with a cocky smile.
And this is the tone for the talk. Heartwarming, humorous, filled with laughter and one or two tears.
What about the fan interactions then?
Alice tells us she never had a really crazy interaction.
-All are so nice, she states.
Fisayo tells us about being approached at a theatre show by a mom and her kid telling him the show was the reason the kid came out to the parents.
They talk about the casting of season 2 and Fisayo expresses his thankfulness that they casted Nima (Nima Taleghani playing teacher Mr Farouk) and he wants to know how that casting went.
-I think it was a standard casting? Alice turns to Patrick.
They watched a lot of casting tapes and Nima’s was very funny. “I don’t give a rat’s ass, rude boy!” and some other of Mr Farouk’s iconic lines came from his casting tape according to Patrick.
-All of them are my favourites, Fisayo says, but Nima is really special.
-Leila (Khan, playing Sahar Zahdi) had the funniest self tape, Alice remembers. She was in the car at a strange angle, and didn’t even do the monologue. She just chatted.
-We had to get her in the room to see if she actually could act, but she sparked, Patrick says.
It’s been serious too, with the eating disorder and self harm but it was never too heavy, Fisayo feels.
-That was a challenge in writing Heartstopper, not to make it too dark or too heavy. It really helps having the tv-series as an adaption of the comics, Alice states.
She gets feedback on every single frame she posts, from readers.
They also involved a help organisation focusing on eating disorders, to help with advice and to look for triggers in the script, starting from season 2.
Fisayo tells us he’s never worked on a show with the producers so on hand. That you can go with everything and never felt so held and continues:
-It’s really rare with so many queer people on the set:
After showing us the scene where Nick comes out to his mum, Fisayo tells us it’s rare for him that a show he’s in makes him cry… And I can so easily understand the tears.
It’s such a beautiful scene with love and a tiny bit of humor.
What is Alice’s hope for the Heartstopper legacy?
-That the existence of Heartstopper means more stories like that exist, she says.
-Now it’s more, but they have to over deliver much harder than others. Heated Rivalry was done on almost no money. The show is different from Heartstopper but some things are similar, Patrick says.
Fisayo continues: they green lit queer shows but never put money in it, like they throw money at for example House of the Dragon. (Which he thinks is a great tv series, he assures.)
Before we go to a sneak peek at the new movie they talk about how logistics have gotten harder. After making the third season they knew it needed one more, but they understood they couldn’t get a season together, the solution became a movie.
-It was really a tiny window. Once you solved one thing a new iceberg appeared. Patrick says. All of them were excited for a new format, and with Kit and Joe as executive producers they were more involved.
(Talking about the movie and getting to see a small clip gave us a few spoilers so I’ll get back to them at the end of this text under a headline named spoiler alert.)
Fisayo claims a spin off about the teachers should be made, and I don’t think anyone would say no to that. Right!?
After a long round of applause we went over to the audience’s questions.
One of the questions was about Heartstopper sharing queer joy instead of the usually darker versions we are used to seeing.
Alice was just interested in writing a queer love story. When the tv-show happened she realised that’s a rare thing to see.
The last page of vol 6 is soon out, how does it feel?
-The final update takes place on 11 April, it’s the epilogue. She tells us it feels strange. She started working in September 2016 so it’s almost 10 years. She can’t wrap it in her head yet.
We get to hear a sweet story from a member of the audience about how they came out to their parents after watching Heartstopper together. Now the family is planning to go to Pride together. Alice says it makes her happy it helped the person. And the question to Alice is what her next adventure will be?
Now she will take a break, and then she doesn’t know. She is not planning any adaptations for the future. Any of them (her existing books) could be one, but since she knows how extremely right it can go, she also knows it can go extremely wrong too. She’s not desperate to do one right now.
I even got a question for them answered: with Joe and Kit as executive producers, what were the thoughts that lead to that, and did they contribute with something you didn’t expect?
-Kit and Joe have always been defined from the minute we met them to through the process. Joe is cool, like I’m just getting on with the job…. He’s very clever, he’s analytical. If he has a question he’ll ask it.
Kit is completely different in a really complementary way, where Kit really likes to talk about everything in detail and likes to get under the skin of stuff so they’re chalk and kiehls in rehearsals. When we’re in rehearsals with them together they really trust each other.
So they came on as E.P it felt like they were a team and where they could help you and I (turning to Alice) just to go: hey this is what we think about this. It was really brilliant to feel like they were sort of incentivised to do that part of that, Patrick says.
Fisayo takes over: also having people that have been the leads of a show, then having a bit more of a say in the show and having them be the people that were all chatting to, they know all the problems and they know all the issues. When they became E.P there was a level of transparency that the cast were given, that for so many reasons, are not often available to the cast. For me and for a lot of the cast, it really helped to contextualise a lot of things that had been maybe niggling us for years. They were really amazing.
– It was really quite a beautiful, generous decision you made, it was deeply beneficial to all of us, he says to Alice and Patrick.
Alice Oseman, Patrick Walters & Fisayo Akinade. Photo Teresa Hedström
Spoiler alert!!!
Fisayo told us he had texted some of the actors asking them if they could join us, but they were sadly occupied but they all had a common favourite day on set to tell about.
It was a really hot day when they were all together on set. It was prom day, and that was Fisayos last day on set. They all had the time of their lives and it was a perfect way to end the Heartstopper era. They started filming Heartstopper small, and like in the beginning, this time it was just the group, having a brilliant time. A perfect end, according to Fisayo.
About the clip from the Heartstopper Forever movie then, they told us to put down the phones. No photos, no filming and no sound recording.
I’m not gonna spill what scene we saw, but Charlie and Nick seem to be doing great, Charlie seems to feel really healthy, both beaming of happiness and love.
We saw many familiar faces and some decisions for the future seemed to start to form in this scene.
And for me, a little unexpected surprise took place. It was a really nice glimpse and it filled my heart with love and anticipation.