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Who needs acting school when all you need to do is land a role on a cast that has a lot of great actors in it. That’s what happened to Joe Locke who grew up in the UK, in Douglas, Isle of Man and sent in a self-taped audition in a massive open casting call for the Netflix series Heartstopper, based off the popular young adult graphic novel series. It would be Locke’s first professional acting gig, and from there would springboard to the Marvel / Disney+ show Agatha All Along. This put him in the growing fraternity of Marvel television alumni and why he was recently paired with Charlie Cox of Daredevil: Born Again fame to talk about their craft, struggles and lessons learned as actors on Variety’s Actors on Actors series.

After Cox shared his experience with going to Bristol Old Vic, Locke expressed how he wanted to go to drama school, and he planned on doing it, but the shooting schedule for Heartstopper made it tough to really commit to school. At the same time, he would see friends from Isle of Man trying to go to London for drama school and end up having to move back home because of the financial difficulty to sustain a life in London. 

On Heartstopper, Locke was just one cast member among a sea of young, green teen actors. This was a stark contrast to Agatha All Along where he was acting along greats like Kathryn Hahn, Patti LuPone and Aubrey Plaza. Cox was fascinated at this contrast but hoped that Locke would have something to share about doing scenes with Hahn and LuPone. 

“I feel like Agatha was my drama school, all of these incredible artists I was just leeching off,” Locke shared. “Kathryn is a master of using her eyes and mouth in a way that I’ve never seen anyone else do it. My favorite example of it is I think in episode five of Agatha where she tells me that she knows who I am and she says, ‘You’re so much like your mother.’ 

“She does this thing with her mouth and it’s only a slight little movement, but it’s like the whole character shifts. The real Agatha comes out. It’s so tiny the way she moves her mouth, and she’s so close to my face. I remember the scene, I’m supposed to be really mad at her but I remember just being like, 'Wow, I know exactly what you’re thinking just from that tiny little switch of your mouth.'” 

“She has a quality that I am in such awe of when I watch other actors, which is she can be so expressive, and so big and always truthful,“ added Cox. “I never don’t believe a second, but it is so enjoyable to watch.”

Both Cox and Locke admit, showing expression in that big manner is a difficult skill to do well and that when they try to be as big and as expressive, it doesn’t seem as genuine or as truthful. Cox especially shares his pain in struggling with that because he’s often told to go bigger and go deeper. In his earliest experiences, Cox was cast very close to who he was, because he said the lines as best he could. He believes that if he got that part, it was because it very close to what casting directors were looking for. 

Cox was cast in dramas, romances and indie comedies ranching from The Merchant of Venice, to Casanova, Inspector Lewis to Stardust. But his career began change when he was cast as the bodyguard enforcer Owen Sleater in Boardwalk Empire. 

“As you work more and more, the industry allows you to try more things and also you want to do different characters and play parts that you wouldn’t necessarily have been cast in early on.” He drew on his casting as Matt Murdock/Daredevil because it is so different than who he was and that he needed to supplement that and learn, investigate and invent those other elements that he’s missing. 

“When I get to do that,” Cox affirmed, “I find it easier to be braver.”

With just two roles under his belt, Locke is ready for a change.

“A lot of the auditions I get sent are for like, the same skinny gay twinks, which is great,” he said laughing. “I’m very good at playing that, because I am a skinny gay twink. I’m struggling now, because I want to do the opposite of that but I’m not worried about it.”

“Well, the skinniness…” Cox teased.

“I’ve been trying to put on weight recently. I just can’t do it. It’s not happening. My metabolism is too fast, like in 10 years I’m sure I’ll be like, god I wish I had that.”

Hmm. Has James Gunn cast the Flash yet?

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Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• The MCU needs Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik in it (and not just for the X-Men connection)
• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga
• What Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is saying (and not saying) about the MCU X-Men franchise says a lot about the future of the Mutant Saga
• If Marvel is going to bring Loki back for Secret Wars, it's time to give him an upgrade
• In 2021, Sony's boss said people won't miss Spider-Man in its Spider-adjacent movie. Turns out, they do.