Empire Spotlight: Joe Locke Is Ready To Enchant The MCU

The Agatha All Along star on casting a spell over the small screen

“I’ve always envisioned myself being in a Marvel, ever since I was a kid,” says Joe Locke. “Ever since” in this case is not reaching very far back into the past. Locke is still just 20 and he’s already achieved that childhood dream. In the upcoming Marvel TV series Agatha All Along, a WandaVision spin-off, Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha has been stripped of her witchy magic and is on a quest to restore it. Locke plays her fanboy assistant, simply known as ‘Teen’. “To be doing it, it’s very ‘pinch me’,” he tells Empire.

The last few years haven’t been short on pinch-me moments for Locke. In 2021, he was just any other teenager, growing up on the Isle Of Man, “applying to normal universities to study history and politics”. Then he attended an open casting call for a new Netflix show, Heartstopper. He beat 10,000 people to win the lead role of Charlie, an out gay teen in a tentative romance with a questioning rugby player (Kit Connor). Released in 2022, the show, a warm, ultra-positive look at growing up LGBTQ+, became an instant hit with a passionate fanbase. Its third series hits Netflix on 3 October, just two weeks after the first episode of Agatha All Along.

"Patti LuPone said, ‘Joe, be present, enjoy yourself, and just breathe. Fuck it’"

Despite being in the business for only a couple of years, Locke has seen his profile rise massively, which is something he’s still getting his head around. “It’s a double-edged sword,” he says. “It was so fast. I don’t think I’d have been able to handle it if the rest of the Heartstopper cast weren’t going through it, too... It’s great to have people know who you are, because that’s sort of how we measure success in this industry, but it’s also weird having a lot of your agency and privacy taken away before you’re 21.”

His rise has come with an extra level of attention. Heartstopper’s LGBTQ+ representation has bestowed on Locke — who’s been out since the age of 12 — a certain level of responsibility to be a role model in an industry that still has relatively few queer actors in lead roles. “Nobody’s asked me to be a spokesperson for gay rights everywhere,” he says. “There’s some expectation, but it’s a choice as well... I think I’ve just learned that it’s important to use a platform for good, but you can’t use it for everything, or be expected to.” Marvel has faced criticism for a lack of LGBTQ+ representation in the past, which it has gradually addressed, and he’s proud of the fact Teen is a gay character. “It’s not really anything to do with the plot of the show,” he says. “He’s just [gay] because he is.”

Locke speaks fondly of his Agatha co-stars, especially Patti LuPone, who sent him flowers on his first night of playing Sweeney Todd on Broadway in January. “She said, ‘Joe, be present, enjoy yourself, and just breathe. Fuck it. That’s it,’” he laughs. “If Patti LuPone says to do that, then okay.”

Given his ascent, it’s easy to forget that just two shows represent the entirety of Locke’s screen CV. Asked what he’d like to do next in his career, he says, “Well, I haven’t done any films yet! So that would be something I’d love to do. Something small and indie would be fun.” He adds, though, that he’s still having to convince himself that this is now what he does for a living and not just some lucky gift he’s been given. “Every time I don’t get a job from an audition, I think, ‘Well, that’s it. All done.’” Something tells us he is very, very far from done. The kid’s got something magic.

The Show: Presumed Innocent

“I love a murder-mystery. I thought Jake Gyllenhaal was great and the whole show was amazing. Just really, really enjoyable. I haven’t seen the original film but I read up on it and they changed the ending.”

The Album: Stereophonic – Original Cast Of Stereophonic

“It’s a play on at the moment; it’s sort of based on Fleetwood Mac. They never say that, but it is. They released the music that’s in the show — they play the songs but it’s not a musical — and [it’s] just gorgeous.”

The Book: In Memoriam – Alice Winn

“I loved it a lot. I think the way she writes is so natural and she writes about war in a way I’ve never really seen in anything I’ve read before. I read that it’s her first novel and I was so shocked. She’s an amazing writer.”

This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Empire. Photography by Gavin Li, shot exclusively for Empire in London.