While promoting Heartstopper, the Netflix show that put Joe Locke on the map, the actor from Northern Europe’s Isle of Man told SoHo House magazine in 2022, “I’d love to play the first queer Disney prince or Marvel superhero. I’m dreaming big here.” Locke, now 20, achieved, at the very least, part of that dream.
He is set to appear in Marvel’s WandaVision sequel series Agatha All Along, playing a mysterious goth character referred to simply as “Teen.” There’s a narrative reason behind that moniker: He’s bewitched. Someone placed a magical “sigil” on him that prevents the boy from sharing his name and origins with Agatha. Hence, he’s just called Teen. It’s clear the character’s true identity is part of the puzzle-box mystery that will kick off with the show’s two-part premiere on Disney+ Sept. 18, but Teen does check off a couple of the actor’s boxes as an openly gay character in a Marvel property.
“It’s very surreal,” Locke tells Entertainment Weekly of manifesting his dream during an interview with series lead Kathryn Hahn. “There are some days where it feels very real and I feel very in it, and there are some days that it just is so unbelievable to me that it almost makes it easier to comprehend.”
Marvel
Locke finds himself in a similar position Hahn was in during the making of 2021’s WandaVision. Marvel initially announced the actress in the role of Agnes, a nosy neighbor-like figure in the town of Westview, but fans were convinced her true identity was Agatha Harkness, a powerful witch who has a long history with the Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff in the comics. They were right! Now the rumor mill is churning out similar predictions for Locke’s Teen in Agatha All Along.
Given the smaller pool of gay male Marvel characters in the comics, and this Teen’s close proximity to magic and Agatha Harkness, fans are convinced Locke is secretly playing Wiccan, a.k.a. Billy Kaplan, a sorcerer and the reincarnation of one of Wanda’s twin sons. Locke definitely saw those theories percolating online. “The fan theories are fun, but they’re fans’ theories and I shouldn’t be the one to comment on them until it’s the right time,” he says.
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One moment that certainly fueled the predictions came in the first Agatha All Along trailer. After helping Agatha Harkness break free from Wanda’s spell that kept her trapped in Westview since the events of WandVision, Teen convinces the now-powerless enchantress to traverse the Witches’ Road, a series of deadly magical trials that can grant a witch’s deepest desire if they reach the end.
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As seen in the teaser, one such trial involves Agatha’s assembled coven of witches — including Aubrey Plaza‘s Rio Vidal, Patti LuPone‘s Lilia Calderu, Sasheer Zamata‘s Jennifer Kale, and Ali Ahn’s Alice Wu-Gulliver — donning 1980s-esque summer camp attire while messing with a ouija board. Locke’s look bears the exact same color palette as young Billy’s clothes from WandaVision.
“I don’t have a lot of input on the trailers, which is where everything starts to be beyond my reach,” showrunner Jac Schaeffer comments in a separate interview with EW. “I think that everything has meaning, and when all these little pieces come out and everybody is theorizing, I like to think it creates a froth that enhances everyone’s experience of what they’re about to see.”
Marvel Studios
How does she feel when seeing the theories about Agatha All Along? “I still get a little nervous, but I have the experience of WandaVision, this voice in my head that’s like, no one knows the how. So if they’re right or they’re wrong, if they’re disappointed, that I can’t control. I have faith that the writers and I took great pains to make the journey of it the fun part.”
Something Locke and Hahn can talk about, sigils be damned, is bringing the kind of character the young actor always craved to the MCU. “This is what a large portion of the fans want to see and be represented in these huge movies,” Hahn says. “They’re a huge part of these movies in this genre’s audience, so it makes sense and also it makes it that more rich.”
It’s funny for Locke to think about, because he once had some concerns over those remarks he made in that early 2022 interview. “When I said that in that interview, I’d already started the audition process for this part,” he recalls. “I remember when it came out thinking, ‘Oh my God! They’re not going to cast me because I’ve already said this!'”
“Clearly,” he adds, “I got the part.”