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 enjoying in Agatha All Along—formally his character’s identify is “Teen,” although hypothesis has narrowed it down a lot more than that—the Heartstopper breakout could be very assured about what he’s bringing to the desk in the WandaVision spin-off. In a brand new interview, he talked about enjoying 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 function he has is so advanced and multi-faceted. “The present by no means shies away from his queerness, however it’s not a defining function 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 mentioned, ‘’hese witches and this attractive 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 “probably the most pinch me factor,” he’s additionally able to face naysayers—even fellow members of the LGBTQ+ group—who’ve taken from the Agatha All Alongside trailers that his efficiency as “Teen” (or whoever he finally ends up being) will probably be a “campy homosexual stereotype.” He defined why that didn’t sit proper with him.

“It actually aggravated me as a result of I used to be like, ‘You may’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 mentioned. “There’s going to be lots of people that simply hate all the things concerning the character and all the things about what I’ve completed with it, and I simply should be OK with that.”

And if Agatha All Alongside consists of musical numbers, as has been rumored, Locke’s theatrical abilities will are available in further helpful; earlier this 12 months, he starred as Tobias Ragg—following Stranger Issues‘ Gaten Matarazzo—within the Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Road.

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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