Heartstopper star Joe Locke says that people “need to learn their boundaries” after revealing that a stranger once called his grandmother following the release of the Netflix show.
The British actor, 19, said he had a “weird guilt” that his friends and family were affected by his own success but acknowledged that most of the attention came from a “really good place”.
It comes after the recent release of Heartstopper’s second series on Netflix, in which Locke stars alongside Kit Connor.
The pair play Charlie Spring and Nick Nelson, respectively, two boys who meet at high school and fall in love.
In an interview with Teen Vogue, conducted before the Hollywood actors strike, which prohibits promotion for projects, the pair discussed navigating their increasingly public lives.
“There’s an idea that it’s part of the job to lose your privacy, that you lose your right to having privacy,” Locke said.
“That’s something I hope the next generation of people in the public eye can change…. I think people are understanding that privacy is a nonnegotiable.”
Acknowledging the impact of his career on his family, he added: “It’s a weird guilt I sometimes feel that, by association, their lives are affected by choices in my life.”
Locke revealed that his mother has made new social media accounts because strangers message her or try to find her location and that someone called his grandmother.
“It’s a mutual thing. I need to learn my boundaries and people need to learn their boundaries,” he said.
“Most attention comes from a really good place, and I hope I always appreciate that.”
In November last year Connor announced online publicly that he was bi-sexual, but suggested that he had been “forced” to do so.
In a recent interview with British Vogue, Connor said he would still have preferred not to have made the announcement publicly, but he does not “regret” it and that it was “in many ways really empowering”.
Speaking to Teen Vogue, Locke said that the Heartstopper team were “very proud” of Connor for his decision to “control the narrative”.
The full interview with Locke and Connor can be read online on Teen Vogue’s website.