‘Heartstopper’ director makes admission about hit Netflix show
With the release of Heartstopper season three, Andy Newbery has opened up about taking over the role of director and shared how honoured he is to be working on a show that is so vital for teenagers to grow up with.
Newbery has taken over directorial duties from Euros Lyn, whom the filmmaker once worked for earlier in his career. However, the filmmaker has now made his way up the ranks and has taken charge of the third season of one of Netflix’s most beloved shows.
With the new series, the relationships between characters are further explored as more poignant issues, from eating disorders to transphobia, are dissected. We see the characters mature a lot this season, with the writers also exploring sex.
Newbery wishes that a show like Heartstopper would’ve existed when he was young and navigating his own adolescence and queerness. “It doesn’t shy away from those darker aspects of teenage life and those mental health struggles and things like that, and it isn’t afraid to go there,” he told BBC Radio Wales.
“But what’s so great about it, I think, is that no matter how deep you are in it, it always feels like there’s a way out, and always feels like pointing towards hope and the positive, and shows that you can get out of these things if you need to.”
The various characters on the show all deal with a range of issues that have rarely been given enough screen time in mainstream television – especially for younger audiences. This has made Heartstopper such an important piece of media.
“It’s the one thing I thought when I first watched Heartstopper, and I’ve heard it many, many times since, especially from people sort of my age really, about how they wish they’d had a show like this when they were growing up,” Newbery added.
“Just knowing that there are other people out there, that queer people exist, and that queer love is possible, and family life within that sort of relationship is possible.”
For Newbery, he hopes that the show will make young viewers feel as though they can “accept themselves a bit more easily and a bit quicker, and maybe some of that shame won’t exist in the same way like it did for a lot of us.”
Season three of Heartstopper has been well-received by fans, although there has been no confirmation of a fourth season just yet.