Joe Locke - ‘At 20, I Felt Like I Was Already 35’

0:00Like my worst nightmare would have been like me going to a club and kissing someone and it being all over Twitter. yeah like that like no thanks but i also realized no one actually gives a f**k i think i realized like last year that i was living the life of someone in their mid-30s and i was 20. i feel more far more comfortable being in spaces with women than i do men. hello and welcome to how to fail i'm elizabeth day and if you're new around here this is the podcast that believe all failure is growth so don't worry you're very welcome and remember your mistakes are what make you. For a limited time at McDonald's, get a Big Mac extra value meal for$8.

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1:18My guest today is still only 21, but has already racked up the professional credits of a seasoned actor and a following that most could only dream of. Joe Locke is best known for his lead role as high school pupil Charlie Spring in the hit Netflix teen drama Heartstopper, for which he received an Emmy nomination. It was his television debut, and since then he's gone on to star in the Marvel miniseries Agatha All Along, to perform in a Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, and now he's making his first West End appearance in Samuel D. Hunter's play Clarkston. He was born and grew up on the tiny, windswept Isle of Man, raised primarily by women, his single mother and her three sisters.

2:05Locke describes his mum as an amazing woman who always supported his ambition to act. He started out with school plays and local productions before being accepted into the National Youth Theatre at the age of 15. Two years later, Locke was chosen out of 10 ,000 other potential actors at an open casting call for Heartstopper. It was a role that would dramatically change his life, but not his privacy, which Locke still guards closely despite his four million Instagram followers and legion of Gen Z fans. I think my privacy is like a power, and the idea of losing that is like the loss of that power, Locke says.

2:49I guess that's the thing I hold on to the most dearest, because that's the bit of me that is still unaffected by anything else. Joe Locke, welcome to How To Fail. Thanks for having me. That was such a lovely rundown. My mum's going to love that. Is she? Good. I always want to give a shout out to the mums. Yeah, my mum deserves a big one. It's a delight and a challenge to have you here as someone who guards his privacy so closely. Let's see how we get on. It's really interesting. Whereas I would still say I do hold my privacy very close, but I'm much more comfortable in what that is. But now I feel more, I still am a very private person, but I'm more open.

3:34I love hearing that. And actually, I think it's so important to make the distinction between privacy and secrecy. Yeah. And I can understand why you were scared and a bit jittery, because that was an interview that you gave around the time of the heartstopper hype. Yeah. And for someone who, as I said, grew up on the Isle of Man, and then your first big job was this immense hit, it must have been incredibly surreal. It was. You know, like overnight, I always say that like overnight, I went from like having like 10 ,000 Instagram followers to 3 million, literally within the space of two days. because Hotslopper came out and it just was this like overnight success in a way that we weren't prepared for.

4:19I don't think Netflix were prepared for. And it was a very like weird adjustment. Yes. So then you've got three million people following you. Then do you feel like, well, I've got to be really careful what I do post now. Yeah. There's like the pressure of like, if I accidentally post something to my Instagram story, like by the time you can take it down, that's already been seen by 10 ,000 people. like in seconds. Do you feel the pressure of being a role model? No, I don't. I used to, but I have realised that's not my job. The only way I can be a role model is by being the true version of myself.

4:55I'm not aspiring to be a role model, and if that is something that people attribute to me, that's not my fault or my thing to worry about. I used to worry about it a lot, but not so much. Let's talk about the play. Yes. Because I know almost nothing about it. Tell me a bit about what the themes are, the character, Jake, that you're playing. So the play's by Sam Hunter, who wrote The Whale, which was with Brendan Fraser and won a few Oscars a few years ago. And his plays are often more about the characters and where they are in the world compared to a really intense action plot. And so our play follows my character, Jake, who moves, who travels to Washington in rural Washington to a town called Clarkston and starts working at a Costco.

5:40So most of the play is set inside this Costco and meets this other boy, Chris. And they have a friendship. And then Chris's mum is battling with addiction. And the play is about the connections between that and them. And it's a really, really beautiful play, I think. And what do you love about theatre? because I do think it was such a brave decision for you to go off the back of this heart-stopper attention and go and do Sweeney Todd in Broadway. Yeah, I mean, I grew up doing loads of amateur theatre in the Isle of Man and that was my passion and still is my passion. And so theatre's always been like, film and TV is great and it's really fun to get to do that and I love doing that.

6:26But theatre, it feels like it's real acting. You get to act a whole story the whole way through. And then doing musicals, I just love musicals. And I got the opportunity to do that. And so I was like, yeah, fuck it. If you do karaoke, do you choose? I hate karaoke. Do you? Hate it. You've got the passion on your face. You know what it is? Because all my friends are so talented and amazing. And you go into karaoke with like singers and then it's just not fun. That's not fair. It's not fair. But you can sing. Yeah, but not. Okay. Like, I can sing a song that I have rehearsed and done and over and prepared.

7:03But then when you go into karaoke and I just, I find karaoke so stressful. You see, now I love karaoke. I can't sing. And so I opt for a rap. So that's my gift to you. What's your karaoke song? Ski-Lo's I Wish. Great. Yeah. Great. Is it true that you can do a Rubik's Cube in less than 90 seconds? I can. Wow. Someone at school told me that I couldn't do it. And so I went home and taught myself it overnight because that's the kind of person I, at least I was, maybe not I am so much anymore, but I very much feel like sometimes I have to prove myself. And so I was like, I'll f***ing go you. And then I did it.

7:41And why do you think you feel you have to prove yourself? Or did then? I don't know. Maybe some sort of like wanting to be accepted and liked. Probably comes down to that. And do you feel accepted and liked now? To an extent, yeah. I think maybe it's more that now I try not to care as much. But then also there are things that I do really try to be liked and accepted for. I think it's just different now. So many of us will relate to this. I also have that tendency where I want people to like me and to accept me because it feels scary not being. And at the advanced age of 46, I still haven't quite nailed it.

8:30But this podcast has actually genuinely really helped me, both because I can show up as my true self, flaws and all, but also because the community that's grown around it, I'm incredibly appreciative of. And I wonder when you're a famous actor, as you are, whether there is a degree of validation that comes from that that is actually quite profound. Yeah, I think so. What does your mum think of your fame? I think she finds it, like, the fame itself weird and sometimes slightly overwhelming. She still is a teacher in the Isle of Man and then sometimes people will message her and be like, oh, do you think Jo could do this for me?

9:16And then she doesn't know how to respond to that. I used to, when I was younger, think, Like, oh, mum, like, why let me live my life? But looking back now, like, when I was 18 and Hearts to But came out and I was suddenly, like, catapulted into this world that she had absolutely no idea of or no grasp of what that is, I would be f***ing terrified if that was my child. And actually, when I was 18 and that was happening, I was like, oh, mum, I'm fine. It's like, let me just live my life. Whereas now looking back, I was like, yeah, no wonder she was so scared. Yes. Like I was going to these big industry parties and then flying back to go and finish my A-levels and then going to another party.

10:01And then like she obviously wouldn't and couldn't stop me because she wanted me to do the things. But like, no wonder that like she found that really stressful and quite scary. And I should have. Well, I guess when you're a teenager, I was living it. I always didn't think of it in that way. It's only in hindsight you can see those things. but like I really should have cut her some slack for that. And she sounds like an amazing woman and an amazing parent. Yeah. Being able to strike that balance between love and protection and allowing your child to follow their dreams. Yeah, yeah. She's very selfless.

10:38She's always put like me above everything for my whole life. Can I ask her name? Helen. Helen. Yeah. This is a shout out to Helen. Hi mum. Is it Helen Locke? Helen Locke. That's a great name. Yeah. Okay, before we get onto your failures, I do need to ask you a few more questions about Heartstopper. Please. Because I know that there are going to be so many people listening who are absolutely obsessed with it, and I'm one of them. Was it bittersweet to say goodbye to the series? Yeah. It felt like the right time and in the right circumstance. And like sending a child off to university. like I was like okay like I'm ready to move on with my like life and career and I think the show is ready to like at the perfect time for it to end and you know we always as a cast always talk about Heartstopper like being our version of university because none of us most of us didn't go to university because the years we would have been at university we were doing Heartstopper and we would like live in the same apartment buildings and we it was like it was like our uni and so like now I would I would have been graduating uni this year if I'd gone and so finishing Heartstopper on that same time was very like fitting it felt it feels like it's a nice goodbye is the film still happening it's we filmed it oh it's done and you're a producer on that yes okay yeah that's exciting it was very it was very exciting it's fun and I think one of the things that was so obvious as a viewer of Heartstopper was the dynamic between you and your cast.

12:16I don't think, I mean, obviously you're a great actor, but I don't think you can entirely fake that. It just felt like the friendships were so real. Yeah, completely. Like, we're all, like, they're all my closest friends. I think also there's something about, like, I see all of them all the time, but if there's ever a time in my life where I don't see them for a while, there's a bond that's created there that it's like it's beyond friendship and what we've all been through together is like a unit that no one else in the world can like has been through that thing in the same way we all have and so that like it's nice to know that they will all be in my life until the day I die like regardless if I don't see them in years and years like yes it's like family that for me is the true metric of friendship you don't have to see each other every single day but when you do even if it is within the span of a few years you can pick up where you left off yeah is there a heart stop a whatsapp group there is there's a few there's like a few over the years of of things but i think this one now is just called like dinner at fizz's because we were going for dinner at for sire's house and that was just no one's changed the name and who's the most active on the group oh i think it really depends it's not like an active active group chat it's just like if like or if there's like an industry party everyone's like oh you're going to the Netflix party tonight you're going to GQ Men of the Year Awards yeah that sort of thing okay I bet you're rubbish on WhatsApp I bet you don't the worst reprier yeah that's what I was about to say I am so bad I have probably like I'm sorry to everyone I like haven't replied to I just like I'll read a text and I'll be like okay yeah yeah and then I'll just forget to reply and then it just gets really stressful because there's like so many to reply to.

14:03So like once a week, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go through it. I'll reply to everyone. But then they will reply when you're still messaging. Now I don't know what to do again. A final question on this. Did you watch Adolescence? I did. What did you think in terms of, Adolescence is obviously also set in a high school, grappling with some similar issues, but in a very different way. Yeah. What did you make of it? I mean, I could talk about this for hours, is the rise of like the right-wing populism within young men yeah it's such an interesting and terrifying thing and i think that's something that show talked about and grappled with in a really accessible way which is so great um i just don't know like what we do to stop it yeah well i think shows like heart stopper are in many ways the vehicle through which we change because there's something so delightful about that show in that it accepts every single character for who they are without over-explaining it.

15:10And I think if we adopt that attitude as a broader culture, then we'll be doing so much better. Yes, that would be nice if we were to do that as a culture.

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16:57So can you not remember what any of the concerns were? I drove too fast. I brake too late. So I got loads of minors on my test, but didn't get any majors, so I didn't fail. That's so funny. I think now I think I'm one of the best drivers I know. Well, this is actually so interesting, because even though it's not one of your failures, I think it's a metaphor for life. Because I also, I did an almost perfect drive for my first driving test. Me too. I was so proud of myself until the last few minutes. and then I rolled back on a hill start, which I've never done. I did the same thing. Stop it, Joe, we're the same person.

17:31And I've never done that before and actually I'm amazing at hill starts. Yeah. And it was an automatic fail. Second test, because I just thought, well, there's no point. There's just no point in trying. I got the same examiner and I made so many minor faults, but I passed because I think I was slightly more relaxed. Yeah. And now as a consequence, I think I'm a far better driver. Yeah, I think I'm a great driver now. So you see failures actually equip us to succeed better. Exactly. There was a little bonus failure. Thank you so much. Okay, we finally landed that point. Your first failure is your failure to enjoy your youth.

18:06Yes. Tell me about your youth. So I mentioned that you grew up on the Isle of Man. Yeah. What's that like? The Isle of Man is amazing to grow up in. I think growing up there, I didn't appreciate how good of a place to grow up it was until I now can look back in hindsight. and like the freedom of of living and growing up in such a free like safe place where like I would go with my friends and I just knew when to come home when it got dark or like there was a lot of freedom in that which was amazing acting and the entertainment industry is such like a interesting like career because it's one of the few careers that someone so young can be in such a position of, I guess, power in the workplace.

19:02And because of that, I think I realized like last year that I was living the life of someone in their mid-30s and I was 20. And I would go and visit my friends at their unis and I'd feel so out of place because I wasn't living a young person's life. And I found that really like... hard and I found I realized I just I needed to take stock and like change some things in my life to then try and enjoy what I had of my youth and I think for a while I like resented the fact that my job meant that I had like couldn't be so young and and do the young people things but I realized I was like, well, I'm doing the job I love, living my dream.

19:52I just need to enjoy the youth through that. Yes. The parts of it I can. My experience of being 21 is very different to what most 21-year-olds' experiences are. But I'm still 21 and I still should enjoy that. So talk to me a bit about what your experience of being 21 is and what young things, quote unquote, you might have liked to have done. Well, I think it's not like I have a stable income. I rent my own home. I do all these things that are very grown up and adult. And I have meetings with my accountant. And I, I don't know, talk to a financial advisor. My friends in the acting world are all buying houses and doing really grown up adult things.

20:41And are in long term grown up relationships. and I was like going down that path and last year I was like I have never been able to experience like having a summer fling or going to a club and kissing someone or like I don't know going on a shit holiday to Mallorca with my friends and and like my life had just taken me in a different path and I was beginning to resent the fact that I didn't like go to university or do the things that I had because when I was growing up I was like oh you like you saw me and he was like well he's gonna go to uni he's gonna do this my like had my whole life sort of planned um and then obviously other things had other plans which is great and I'm like not that I'm so happy for that But I think I realised that I'd got so overwhelmed in that world of like, oh, I need to be this person that I am now, that I'd forgotten how old I actually was and how little life experience I'd had and how I needed to just slow down and live my life.

21:52Yeah, because you're also the oldest child, aren't you? Yeah. And you come across as someone who is so mature and sorted. And I am, but also I need to and I'm trying to like not always be that person. Yeah. And did you get any help with this when you realised that there was a slight tension there? Yeah, well, I got out of a relationship, which was a good thing for becoming young again. And then I, one of my best friends, Dylan, is the most inspiring woman. And she just taught me to just like enjoy the fun things because I think I realized that I wasn't like letting myself enjoy young people things because I had this like high pressure life.

22:43and she was just like you just need to just like let yourself have more fun and let yourself like make like the young people things that you do like going out and getting really drunk and then vomiting in the toilet like i would like stop myself yeah i don't know doing that so did you go and do yeah it's great but also while doing it and not like having like a life crisis and like falling off the like I still am myself I'm not going to change that but I don't know I've really been enjoying this year being young again because I feel like last year I spent a whole year living someone living the life of a 35 year old yes and was there a fear attached to if you did let yourself go quote unquote that you would also be seen to be doing that because a lot of 20-somethings can make those mistakes in private yeah the definitely that was a big part of it is like I don't know not feeling an added pressure of not being able to do those on such a public scale yeah but I realized that I wasn't doing those things because I was so terrified of of not the repercussions because I wasn't doing anything wrong but like it like my worst nightmare would have been like me going to a club and kissing someone and it being all over twitter yeah like that like no thanks but i also realized no one actually gives a fuck no one cares joe like you're so egotistical that you think someone's going to film you kissing someone in the club and put it on like no one cares i mean some people might care but like you just got you just got to do it in a different way like i probably wouldn't go to heaven and do it there.

24:25Yeah. Because it's like, but you can let yourself go and have fun and be not so like all tight up and in your own way. It sounds to me like there's something around trust here. Sort of trusting yourself. Probably. As well as trusting that you're safe. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I'm so glad that you're having some well-deserved fun. Yeah. Yeah, this year's been my year of trying to have more fun. And you don't need to tell me this, but I'm interested. When you say you got out of a relationship, was the reason for getting out of it because you wanted to have fun? I've made that sound trivial.

25:05I didn't mean to. No, it was a lot because I realised I wasn't ready in my life to be in a very long-term grown-up relationship. Yeah. the social media of it all how do you handle it i'm very aloof on social media you're very cat-like yeah i like post something and then will disappear and then i i keep my social media quite work focused which can sometimes go into the personal because work is so intertwined with my life do you care what people you don't know think of you i used to say no but i think that anyone who says they don't care what people they don't think about them are lying even if they think they're not um most of the time i don't but sometimes yeah it's not that i care what they think of me but i would rather they think of me in a in in a certain way yes like i want would would rather shape the way that they think of me in a way that I think is positive rather than I guess exactly what they think of me.

26:13That is such a smart response. Yes that makes total sense because it goes back to trust and control. Yeah I like having control. Yeah me too. Tell me a little bit about being raised by women and how you think that has shaped you. I was saying to my friend the other day that I think I've got like reverse misogyny because of my upbringing in the way that like I would if I was like choosing a team of people like for work or whatever I would never choose a man over a woman I would always choose a woman like for everything. I love you. Like it's probably bad and it's probably just as bad as being misogynistic but that's my truth.

26:57I think it's fine because the pendulum has to swing so far in the other direction that it's just recalibration. Yeah, like I would like always trust, I feel far more comfortable being in spaces with women than I do men. And I don't know if that's just because of my upbringing, because I also had amazing male figures in my life. But my mum and her sisters were very like, my grandma and my granddad also was great. My dad when I was a bit older as well. But my mum and her sisters were very much so, were very like strong influences on my life. When you say you feel more comfortable in a room full of women rather than men, what about men who aren't straight?

27:36Oh, even more so. Really? Yeah. Sorry. No, no, I know that's not necessarily true. But I think that I would feel comfortable in a room of gay men. But now in my life, I'd feel comfortable in a room of straight men in a way that I definitely wouldn't have when I was younger. Like at school and things. which I think also looking back wasn't necessarily their fault or my perception that I had this idea that I thought that like the bro-y straight guys wouldn't like me and so therefore I didn't put myself in those scenarios so therefore wasn't comfortable in those scenarios whereas now I look back and think actually like most of those people that I was scared of are actually really lovely guys and nice people and I maybe was just as much putting on them what I thought they like projecting onto them what I thought they would be rather than what they actually were yes there's that thin line between protecting yourself and defensiveness yeah so we're talking about your youth but I wonder if we could spool forward so as you mentioned you're about to turn 22 so when you're 44 if you can imagine that advanced age what would you like your life and career to look like oh i'd love to have a family probably quite a new family because i can't see myself having a family for a while

29:08and I'd love to like still be doing this job and the job I love but maybe a little bit slower maybe like just because I feel like right now like in my 20s I'm like bam bam bam let's go let's work all of it which is I love it but I can see myself wanting to slow down and enjoy my life with my hopefully children I'd love to have kids I think you'd be an amazing dad I hope so I hope so Well even that response to me Look and he's touching wood if you're listening to this Even that response to me shows that you'd be amazing Because you're not arrogant in any way shape or form Okay your second failure is your failure to believe in yourself Talk about a seamless link Well yeah actually I was like believing in myself sounds so eggy and so but I was like something like back myself but it is believing myself like I think I this one for a long time and still a lot I feel like an imposter in my career because I was not handed the job like I was just very lucky and I was very lucky that Hartstub chose me and then I got a great agent and then I was lucky that other things fell into place and so for a long time I've felt like I didn't necessarily belong in the job that I'm in um and so therefore I didn't really have like a belief that I could make a career out of it and I think there's quite a lot of the times I still like find myself just like feeling so grateful to be in the spaces I'm in that I forget that like oh no like I've actually worked quite hard to be here yes yeah yeah can I Can I ask what that open casting call process was like?

30:54Yeah. It's taught me through everything. They sent an open call out. I sent it in my headshot and then I did a self-tape. How did you find out about the call out? A friend of my mum sent it to my mum and was like, oh, this looks cool. You should show it to Jo. And then I was like, cool. So thanks, Nikki. Shout out to Nikki. Shout out to Nikki. Helen's friend. Yeah. And then I sent in a self-tape. Is it really excruciatingly cringe having to do a self-tape? The worst. I hate self-tapes. Like, now I've done many of them and it's easier, but it's not fun. I much prefer going in the rooms for an audition.

31:36That is so much better. Yeah, because you have to sort of put your eye cone up on the cooker. It also feels like people don't get to see you as a person. every job I've gotten I've gotten because I was able to go in the room okay so you do a cringy self-tape which I'm sure is great they asked me if they could release it and I was like publicly I was like over my dead body release that and I will sue you sue you that was such a shame because there's this there's this corner of TikTok that I'm obsessed with which is actors doing self-tape can I say something controversial I think all of them are bad I know every self-tape even the best actors in the world, I think all self-tapes are inherently just not good.

32:18Yeah. Okay. So we're never going to see. Never going to see. Maybe when you die, it will be able to. I'm going to put it in my will. Do not release. Okay. So you send the self-tape. Send the self-tape. And then I think I did another self-tape maybe. And then a few Zoom calls, but it was during COVID. So it was all like I was doing my A-levels. I was in the Isle of Man recording it over loads of books because I didn't have a tripod or anything at that point and then they flew me out to London which is like when was that? 2021? and then I did a chemistry read and then got the part and how did they tell you you got the part?

33:01so by that point the cast in George had helped me get my agent which I'm so grateful for because me and my agent have an amazing relationship now and like he's he's the best um he's a man so well that's good yeah yeah you've got a man in your team i know i think he's yeah he's the only man on my team okay literally is it's great so i did my audition and i flew back to the isle of man and because it was covid i had to isolate on my own in my house for two weeks so my mum had to move out just me and the dog and so my agent rang me to tell me but it was just on my own in my house oh my goodness it made the two weeks of isolating worth it though because I was like oh I've got something to look forward to.