KIT CONNOR AND JOE LOCKE LOOK BACK ON THE KISS THAT STARTED IT ALL AS THEY SAY GOODBYE TO HEARTSTOPPER. K2 ❤️

“We said goodbye to them almost a year ago, and yet it feels like we haven’t actually said goodbye yet,” Locke says.

Kit Connor and Joe Locke in ‘Heartstopper Forever’.Credit: Samuel Dore/Netflix

Heartstopper Forever, the big finale movie to wrap up the cozy coming-of-age romance, returns to where it all began.

While celebrating senior prom, Charlie (Joe Locke) and Nick (Kit Connor) find themselves back in the same empty room where they shared their first kiss. “Looks like no one’s come in here since we did,” Nick remarks, while Charlie suggests, “They should put a plaque on the wall.”

There was a lot of nostalgia in shooting that scene for the two stars who became internationally recognized as a result of this series. “The kissing scene is definitely the most nostalgia in your face, in a really lovely way,” Locke shares with Entertainment Weekly. “It felt very special to go back to that room. And, as it says in the scripts, we were babies. It felt very true to life.”

It’s the end of an era for Heartstopper, which offers a happy ending after warming so many hearts over the years. After a reactionary breakup, rooted in their anxieties about the future, Nick and Charlie get back together and continue their romance into the next phase of their lives. The former teen rugby player goes off to college in Leeds, but Charlie, the once shy and emotionally fragile kid, routinely visits him in the city by taking the train after school.

Everyone talks about how fleeting high school loves typically are, but they decide they will be an exception.

For Locke and Connor, saying goodbye isn’t so simple. There was a series of events that all felt finite: the first day of filming the finale movie, the last day of filming, the wrap party, the press tour (on which they speak with EW on the second Sunday of July), and the moment Heartstopper Forever finally comes out in the world (it’s now available to stream on Netflix).

“We said goodbye to them almost a year ago, and yet it feels like we haven’t actually said goodbye yet,” Locke notes. “I think that’s probably because they’ve been such formative parts of our lives for so long that I don’t know if we ever really will fully feel like that.”

Connor remembers a “general feeling of the unknown” when he first joined Heartstopper at 17 years old back in 2021. “It was this show that we had no idea what would happen,” he explains. “Maybe people would watch it, maybe they wouldn’t. We thought there was something special in it. So, yeah, it’s kind of crazy to think back to that now.”

Since Heartstopper, Connor, now 22, has spread his wings career wise. He landed prominent voice roles on HBO’s His Dark Materials and the animated movie The Wild Robot, while also starring in 2025’s Warfare with other prominent actors of his generation and opposite Rachel Zegler for the West End’s Romeo & Juliet.

He’ll now appear in the Elden Ring movie, based on the fantasy video game of the same name.

Connor admits he’s not much of a gamer, though he grew up watching his brother play them. “When Alex told me that we were gonna do this film, I started playing it,” he says of Alex Garland, who directed the actor on both Warfare and Elden Ring. “So I’ve spent a fair few hours playing it — and it’s very difficult. I have played it quite a lot, and I have also watched a lot of other people playing it.”

Locke, also 22, achieved star status as a result of Heartstopper, as well, scoring a role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as magic-wielding Billy Maximoff in Disney+ miniseries Agatha All Along. Ruaridh Mollica, Locke’s costar in the U.K.-based play Clarkston, will now play Billy’s speedster brother, Tommy Maximoff, in successor show VisionQuest (coming this fall).

“I actually knew before we did the play that he was playing that part,” Locke remarks, “and I’m very excited to see him in his show. I’m sure he’s amazing.”

Locke says he thinks about what his life would be without Heartstopper quite often. He says, “My life would be completely different in basically every way.”

The same goes for Connor, who had been acting steadily prior to season 1. “But you just don’t know,” he adds. “It’s sort of impossible to know, but luckily it happened.”

They’re both now grateful for the impact Heartstopper had on the world. When fans come up to them, it’s not just to snap selfies; it’s to share how the show, with prominent LGBTQ representation, helped them. “Hopefully it continues to have that effect as it has its own life outside of us,” Connor remarks.

Much of Heartstopper Forever felt like an homage to the legacy the show now leaves behind, but none more so than the scene of their first kiss. Locke remembers being in a state of “slight disbelief” to return to that set as the actor he became over the course of this series.

“We were just in such a different position and had no idea what was going on the first time that we were there,” he says. “A lot of scenes in this film really felt like a nice way to say goodbye. It felt like it was a very slow process of putting things to bed and saying goodbye.”