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Heartstopper star Will Gao’s new dystopian climate change play has on-site therapist for the cast: ‘We need that safe space’-Hugh Montgomery-Entertainment – Metro
This dystopian climate change play is hardcore.
This dystopian climate change play is hardcore (Picture: Helen Murray)
For someone so early in their career, 19-year-old actor Will Gao is showing quite the range. Over the last few months, he has shot to fame in the heartwarming Netflix teen drama Heartstopper.
But now he is switching things up with a role in a new play at London’s Donmar Warehouse that could hardly sound less uplifting: The Trials, by writer Dawn King, imagines a dystopian near-future where the world has been ravaged by climate change and a jury of children passes judgement on adults for their complicity in the planet’s destruction.
Will plays one of the jurors, alongside his Heartstopper co-star Joe Locke, and he says it’s a play in which the subject matter can’t help but weigh heavy on the cast – to such an extent that there has been a therapist on hand ‘if we need to talk with anyone and also to just be there in the room, to [create] that safe space,’ Will explains.
Within the diverse group of 12 junior jurors, Will plays Xander and says he wanted to do The Trials because, while he has had friends involved in climate change activism, he felt like he hadn’t ‘really paid enough attention… I was really fascinated in exploring it through a creative outlet’.
Among other things, the play will reflect on the resentment that younger generations may increasingly feel towards older generations for the cataclysmic situation being handed on.
‘There is a lot of anger [among my peers],’ agrees Will, ‘but I think that we should be careful not to steer into the territory of hopelessness. There’s a balance to be had with how we tackle this issue.’
One particularly gratifying element of the show is the casting: Will and Joe aside, many of the other young performers are making their professional debuts, with the youngest being 12.
William’s role in The Trials shows his versatility as an actor (Picture: The Other Richard / Richard Davenport)
This dystopian play is set to be a corker (Picture: The Trials – Donmar Warehouse)
Will acts in this new play alongside Heartstopper co-star Joe Locke (Picture: Helen Murray)
This means that Will is in fact one of the more experienced actors involved, and has been able to act as a bit of a mentor to some of his castmates. ‘It is kind of beautiful to have that challenge and experience of being able to transfer the little skills I have learned at this age,’ he says.
Will traces his own desire to perform back to watching an inspiring production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at London’s Globe theatre. A few years later, incidentally, he then himself appeared as a fairy in Benjamin Britten’s operatic version of the play at Glyndebourne, before becoming part of the National Youth Theatre: it was through them he found out about the casting call for Heartstopper and came to audition for the role of the winningly blunt Tao, a member of its central friendship group.
At the time, Will had not heard of Alice Oseman’s graphic novels, on which the Netflix series is based, but he says he ‘bought one just before the first audition and fell in love with it’.
What he couldn’t have predicted, however, was the sheer scale of the response to the TV adaptation: the cast have become bona fide teen icons, with the show’s army of fans loving its positive depictions of young LGBTQ+ romance, in particular.
Will relays how he has had people come up to him in public ‘crying and saying, “You don’t understand how much this has meant to me.” It means a lot.”’
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The reaction on social media has been similarly momentous, and Will now has two million followers on Instagram, though he remains admirably level-headed about such things: ‘It’s a tiny number on a phone,’ he says. ‘So I’m quite good at disconnecting.’
Enviably talented as he is, Will is also fostering a career as a musician: with his sister Olivia, he has a band called The Wasia Project whose beguiling pop songs take inspiration from classical music, jazz and modern stars such as Billie Eilish and Tyler The Creator in equal measure.
In fact, they’ve got a couple of gigs coming up, the London one of which has already sold out. ‘You can mention that, that’s a flex,’ he jokes.
Soon, he’ll also begin filming Heartstopper season two, which he is excited for, given it will see ‘more romance’ for his character Tao, presumably building on the will-they-won’t-they storyline with his friend Elle from the first series.
And then beyond that, it’s clear he is bursting with ambitions: one of his long-term goals is to play Hamlet on stage. ‘I think it comes much later when an actor is really assured of their craft, so this is far, far away,’ he cautions.
Though given how his career is progressing, I wouldn’t be so sure about that…
The Trials is at the Donmar Warehouse from tomorrow until August 27
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