While Marvel fans still don’t know exactly who Joe Locke is playing in Agatha All Along —officially his character’s name is “Teen,” though speculation has narrowed it down a lot more than that —the Heartstopper breakout is very confident about what he’s bringing to the table in the WandaVision spin-off . In a new interview, he talked about playing a queer character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and what it means to him both personally and professionally. Speaking to Variety , Locke says Agatha All Along has made him less concerned about being typecast as a gay character, because the role he has is so complex and multi-faceted.
“The show never shies away from his queerness, but it’s not a defining feature of his character,” he told the trade. “It’s just one layer of him as a person.” Elsewhere in the article, Agatha Harkness herself, Kathryn Hahn, recalls how soon after she started working with Locke she was impressed with his sense of self.
“He corrected me early on, because I said, ‘’hese witches and this gorgeous wizard,'” she recalled to Variety. “And he was like, ‘No, we’re all witches.’ That really stuck with me.
” Though Locke considers being in a Marvel series “the most pinch me thing,” he’s also ready to face naysayers—even fellow members of the LGBTQ+ community—who have taken from the Agatha All Along trailers that his performance as “Teen” (or whoever he ends up being) will be a “campy gay stereotype.”.