While making his Broadway debut as theater’s most iconic heartthrob, Romeo in a reimagined production of Romeo + Juliet, Kit Connor not only made headlines for his performance, but went viral for a few squeal-inducing moments of blocking: that infamous pull-up kiss, and a shirtless scene with Juliet, played by Rachel Zegler. Despite the theater’s strict rules against photos and videos, both moments were captured and spread by fans in the audience who sneakily pulled out their phones.
Now, in a new interview with The Cut, the Heartstopper star opened up about the feeling of being photographed in those moments.
“I’d take my shirt off and see camera flashes from the audience,” Connor said. “There was something quite seedy about that.”
“It’s hard to talk about it,” he continued. “It upset me at times, not because I felt objectified — and I did feel objectified at times, I’m not undermining that feeling — but what upset me more was that scene came right after my ‘Banished’ scene, in which Romeo threatens to kill himself.”
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The experience, Connor explained, brought him back to his younger years of insecurity. “I grew up very self-conscious. I used to stand on a train platform and all I could think was, ‘That person thinks I’m an idiot’ or ‘That person thinks my haircut’s sh*t,’” he said. “When Heartstopper came out, there was this evidence that my brain could use as a supply: that they might actually be thinking that.”
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Rumors say that the famous franchise is looking to “cast someone very young” to play James Bond, and Connor would be a perfect pick.
“Rachel [Zegler] was lovely, and who doesn’t love ‘Snow White’ and Disney?” Corinna Brown has said of her time working on the recent remake.
Elsewhere in the interview, Connor spoke to the possibility of a fourth (and final) season of Heartstopper, which has been up in the air since the third season released back in October. Unfortunately for fans, Connor has no new updates to provide, apart from the sentiment that he and the rest of the Heartstopper team wouldn’t be “making it just for the sake of making it.” In that sense, he hopes the season happens sooner than later, if it happens at all: “You don’t want to see Olivia Colman driving a 30-year-old Kit Connor to high school,” he joked.
Connor also hinted that he has a few more projects in the works, though he can’t discuss them just yet, and that he always seeks out “good writing, good filmmaker,” and “good role” when it comes to finding work.
“I find a lot of Hollywood to be very alien to myself and maybe overwhelming,” he added. “However, I was also the kid who wanted to be a movie star.”
Connor’s next big project, Warfare, comes to movie theaters on April 11. Check out the trailer below.
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