Kit Connor is filming Heartstopper Forever as the final chapter of Heartstopper in Berkshire. The shoot is in week six of seven at Bray Studios, and the film is already closing in on the end of a franchise that turned a young cast into a bigger draw for Netflix.
There have been moments where I’ve had flutters of emotion, Connor said. He added that when Will Gao and he finished their last scene together, he thought, “Oh fuck, this is quite upsetting.”
Bray Studios in week six
The production is set in a house near Maidenhead in Berkshire, on the grounds of Bray Studios. That location keeps the ending physically contained, which fits a story built around Nick and Charlie as 17 and 18-year-olds moving toward university, gap years and impending adulthood.
Joe Locke leads Heartstopper Forever to Netflix on Friday 17 July as the team keeps the film moving toward delivery. Wash Westmoreland was on set calling out to the cast during a party scene, a reminder that the final stretch is less about scale than about timing, performance and getting the last emotional beats in the can.
Connor, Locke and the cast
These characters have meant a lot to us over the years and we’ll always carry them with us, Connor said. Locke put the bond even more plainly: “It’s more than friendship; it’s family,” and “I know these people will always be in my life.”
Heartstopper began as Alice Oseman’s graphic novels and built a fast audience on Netflix; season one later clocked nearly 24m viewing hours a week at its height. Yasmin Finney’s breakout as Elle Argent carried her into Doctor Who, which is the clearest sign that the show did more than finish a story — it changed careers.
A quiet ending, not a soft one
Heartstopper Forever is being framed as a farewell, but the film is not drifting to the finish line on sentiment alone. The story includes alcohol dependency for Nick and jealousy for Charlie, so the final chapter is pressing harder into adulthood than the series could when the characters were younger.
That is the right move. A franchise this successful should not leave its ending in comfort mode, and Connor’s reaction to filming his last scene with Gao suggests the film knows exactly where the emotional pressure sits. The unfinished question is how Nick and Charlie leave adolescence behind without losing the version of themselves that made the story matter in the first place.
