Heartstopper boss Alice Oseman is sharing why she extended Nick’s coming out journey for the tv adaption.
When Heartstopper dropped earlier this year, the show became an instant hit. Part of its appeal was its charming and easy approach to young queer life and romance. But as bestselling author and show writer Alice Oseman shares, they added more drama to one character’s storyline to make a successful tv adaption. As Oseman shared this while speaking at the Edinburgh International TV Festival 2022.
They said, “The comics are so low stakes. When problems arise in the story of the comics they’re solved almost immediately. And that is something that people like about the comics but it doesn’t work for TV because if there’s no drama, people will get bored.”
She added, according to Radio Times, “So the big changes that we made were all sort of adding more tension and elongating the character journeys. Like for example Nick, who goes on this sexuality journey in Heartstopper – in the show it takes him longer to figure out who he is and feel comfortable with who he is, while in the comics he sort of figures it out quite quickly, and that’s really nice.”
They added that “there are differences” throughout the Netflix adaptation, but thinks it’s possible to make those “while also serving the comic.”
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Kit Connor, who plays Nick on the Netflix show, also talked about the series with Radio Times. While on the Radio Times Podcast at the BFI & Radio Times TV Festival in May, Conor talked about the impact the show had on him.
“I mean, I think that it’s pretty incredible, really, to be able to do a show like Heartstopper at the age of 17,” revealed Connor. “It’s more than seeing some of the reactions that it’s had to seeing some of the sorts of effects that it’s had on people’s lives has been, you know, more than touching, it’s been pretty emotional, to be honest.
“So, you know, seeing different things like people using scenes to come out to their parents is just, like, unbelievable.,” Connor confessed.
The actor added, “There’s never enough queer people being genuinely happy on screen. It’s so important that we are doing that.”
It seems Netflix agrees, or likes that Heartstopper was so popular, as the streaming platform has greenlit not only season 2 but also a season 3.
Source: Radio Times,
