Although Finney had a supportive fanbase, the response from strangers was brutal. That said, TikTok was not an entirely pleasant experience. I’m basically setting myself up to fail.’ I didn’t see myself reflected in the UK media anywhere.” Instead, she intended to “just do TikTok for the rest of my life”. “I was like, ‘There’s no trans roles, there’s nothing.
So strong was her connection, in fact, that the role – her first proper acting job – didn’t actually involve much acting, “because Elle literally is me”.Īt the time of her audition Finney was studying drama at college, but had little hope of making it. There was no way anybody else could play this character.” She identified strongly with Elle, who transfers from an all-boys grammar to the girls’ school next door, and has a budding romance with close pal Tao. Although she had never heard of the comics, she says: “I just knew I would get it – it was a calling. Finney was alerted to a call for a trans girl of colour by her TikTok followers. Most of the Heartstopper team were acting novices, cast via open auditions on Zoom. “Of course we’re really friends! We’ve got a group chat we message on every day.” So have the actors really remained close mates since filming wrapped? Finney looks at me with horror-tinged disbelief. Fans follow the show’s stars forensically on social media, just as invested in their real-life friendships as their fictional ones.
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The series is based on Alice Oseman’s cult internet comics, first published in 2016, about two schoolboys who fall in love. Now, thanks to Heartstopper – a hit for Netflix, which last week commissioned two further seasons – her following is gargantuan and intensely communicative (she has 1.7m followers on TikTok and 1.3m on Instagram). Reckoning with internet fanbases is nothing new for Finney: she had one before she was famous, thanks to a popular TikTok account she started in school and used to document her trans experience. ‘We’ve got a group chat we message on every day’ … the cast of Heartstopper. But I think it’s going pretty well so far!”
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It’s insane and I’m learning so much.” She’s also very excited to be involved with this thrillingly progressive new Doctor Who era alongside Gatwa and, of course, returning showrunner Davies, the writer who has almost single-handedly made British TV a more queer-friendly (and straightforwardly better) place, with such shows as It’s a Sin, Years & Years and Queer As Folk.įinney fully appreciates Davies’ significance: “I am in awe of the fact that I’ve been seen by such a legend.” In fact, her only source of stress has been a very pleasant one: “I was worried about having two huge fanbases following me and whether they’d get along. She loved watching Tennant and Tate as a child – she was one when the former took over as the Timelord – and is finding it “a bit surreal to be acting with them. Regardless of how she got there, Finney is clearly in her element. But she doubts Lyn knew the precise nature of the project under discussion. Was it mere coincidence that Davies’ mid-00s Doctor Who collaborator Euros Lyn also directed Heartstopper? “That was a huge coincidence!” exclaims Finney, before admitting that, actually, Lyn did recommend her to producers who were “looking for a trans girl”. I don’t want to give too much away.” My chances of gleaning anything meaningful seem practically zero. “I didn’t know for a long time,” she says over Zoom, through curtains of sleek blond hair, “but I did know. Photograph: Netflixįinney squirms at the mere mention of Doctor Who – and what little she has to say about her casting only confuses matters further. ‘There was no way anybody else could play this character’ … Finney as Elle in Heartstopper.