Later this month, Netflix is turning traditional teenage coming-of-age shows on their head with Heartstopper, an LGBT love story that tackles romance in an unexpected way. In the first trailer for the series, viewers meet Charlie Spring (Joe Locke), a very geeky and gay teenager who hasn’t found anyone to return his romantic love. And yet sparks fly almost immediately when Charlie meets Nick Nelson (Kit Connor). Nick is almost everything Charlie isn’t, including athletic, popular, and heterosexual.
The gulf between Charlie and Nick’s desires seems so insurmountable that Charlie actually asks one of his friends how he can stop feeling so strongly about Nick. And while Nick may not realize it, he appears to have feelings for Charlie too. He even invites Charlie to join him on the rugby team, even though sports and Charlie looks like a bad mix. It’s ambiguous at the moment if Nick made that request just as an excuse to spend more time with Charlie.
William Gao also co-stars in the series as Tao Xu, with Yasmin Finney as Elle Argent, Corinna Brown as Tara Jones, Kizzy Edgell as Darcy Olsson, Sebastian Croft as Ben Hope, Cormac Hyde-Corrin as Harry Greene, Rhea Norwood as Imogen Heaney, Tobie Donovan as Isaac Henderson, Jenny Walser as Tori Spring, Fisayo Akinade as Mr. Ajayi, Chetna Pandya as Coach Singh, and Alan Turkington as Mr. Lange.
Heartstopper is based upon the web comic and graphic novel created by Alice Oseman, who also wrote and developed the series. Euros Lyn is directing the show. The eight-episode first season will debut on Netflix on April 22.
