Kit Connor on ‘Romeo+Juliet’ and Making “Ballsy” Career Decisions
Following the success of Netflix’s Heartstopper, Kit Connor found himself drawn to Broadway, where he’s currently leading a Gen-Z centric Romeo + Juliet, as the titular heartstruck teenager, who, in this production, attends raves, races through the audience and jumps into a pull-up to kiss co-star Rachel Zegler on a bed suspended above the stage.
Why choose this project for his Broadway debut?
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“It just felt ballsy,” Connor said. “It’s been what I’ve been trying to do with my career decisions recently, just try and do things that are a little bit more ballsy.”
While Connor built his career in film and TV, with roles such as young Elton John in Rocketman and a recurring role as high schooler Nick Nelson in the feel-good, rom-com Heartstopper, Connor had felt the pull back to the stage. As he notes, the popularity of Heartstopper can be a double-edged sword.
“I think it is one of those things where it did put me on a platform and give me the ability to move on to different projects, which is amazing, but as soon as it started to gain a bit more attention, I was immediately thinking, ‘Oh, gosh, OK maybe we need to start really thinking about what the next move is,” he said. “Because with shows like that and characters like that, I think audiences can find it difficult to separate the character from the actor at times.”
That’s where Romeo + Juliet comes in. Connor, who had developed a love of Shakespeare in school, said he appreciated director Sam Gold’s approach to this production, which sets up the first half as “incredibly funny and light and energetic,” populated with songs by Jack Antonoff, before bringing in the tragedy and knocking the audience off center. (Connor has been particularly praised by critics for his performance in the play and his interpretation of Shakespeare.)
When it came to the balcony scene, in which Connor zips through the audience before hanging from the platform and doing the pull-up into the kiss, Connor says he was told by Gold to approach the scene with “reckless abandon.” And while he was initially apprehensive for the scene, given the importance it holds in the play and the cultural zeitgeist, it is now his favorite part of the show.
“The audience, for the ending to really work at all, and for the audience to believe it, let alone be moved by it, need to believe that these kids are really, really, really mental,” he said. “And pretty much as soon as he meets Juliet, he’s just like nothing else matters. And so it felt like the balcony thing needed to be very kinetic and just sort of explosive.”
One of the goals of the production is to bring younger audience members to the theater, and for them to resonate with what’s happening on stage. This has been happening throughout the Broadway run, with screams during the balcony scene and audible reactions to the line readings.
“I like that they are a part of what’s going on. I think London is slightly allergic to that,” said Connor, who has starred in two shows in the West End. “Me as a Londoner myself, whenever I’m in a show that’s somewhat interactive, I’m kind of like, ‘Oh no, please, please don’t ask me on stage.”
The respective fame of Connor and of Zegler, who recently starred in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, has led to what Connor describes as “utter chaos” at the stage door afterwards, as fans line up in droves for autographs. The production is also selling well, playing to 100% capacity or more since opening Oct. 24 and bringing in more than $1 million weekly in recent weeks.
The play, which is a limited engagement, is scheduled to end Feb. 16. As for what’s next, Connor is not yet sure if Heartstopper will return for a fourth season. In the interim, he has the upcoming release of the A24 war film Warfare, in which the 20-year-old says he was able to play his most adult role yet.
“I’m looking forward to start going into more adult roles and more adult characters,” he said.
He plans to prioritize both film and theater projects across his career, with some television sprinkled in, but above all, he wants to keep challenging himself.
“I’d like to take a little break just so that I can kind of cleanse my mind and my palate to a certain extent, and then I’d like to do something completely different,” Connor said of the end of the Broadway run. “I want to try and spend the next couple years just doing a bunch of really different stuff, and quite hard stuff, if possible, so that I can try and force myself to get better.”
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