The last time Marvel stars Charlie Cox and Joe Locke saw each other, they were waiting in line for a ride at Disneyland after previewing their shows — “Daredevil: Born Again” and “Agatha All Along,” respectively — during the biennial D23 expo in Anaheim.
“I just remember your son was wearing a Daredevil T-shirt, and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Locke tells Cox.
“My son thinks I’m a superhero,” Cox says. “I FaceTime with him when I’m in the full [costume], which is quite sweet. And the look on his face, his eyes just wide.”
Locke, too, is a big fan of Cox’s character, Matt Murdock, the blind attorney who moonlights as the vigilante Daredevil. It’s been a decade since Cox played the role on Netflix’s “Daredevil,” and now he reprises it for “Daredevil: Born Again” on Disney+. Meanwhile, Locke is the breakout star of two shows: Marvel’s “Agatha All Along,” where he plays a mysterious kid named Billy who teams up with a ragtag coven of witches, and Netflix’s “Heartstopper,” the coming-of-age romance where he stars as a gay teen navigating a love affair with his classmate.
Charlie Cox: What’s interesting watching “Heartstopper” and “Agatha” is how you go from a set with presumably a lot of people for whom it’s their first job onto a set with veterans, left, right and center. What was that experience like?
Joe Locke: Terrifying but amazing. I did 12 auditions for “Agatha.” I remember getting the first tape. I didn’t even know what it was at that point. It was just “Untitled Marvel Show.” Before they gave me the part, I was like, “If I don’t get it …”
Cox: … it’s going to be devastating.
Locke: Absolutely devastating. But I did!
Cox: I’m going to embarrass you very quickly. We kind of promised we wouldn’t do this, but Episode 5 [of “Agatha”], there’s a turn for your character and we realize how much really has been going on behind the scenes. I thought it was masterfully handled because you don’t telegraph it at all leading up to it. Well done.
Peggy Sirota for Variety
Locke: Thank you. I’ll accept it. It was definitely different on “Agatha” than “Heartstopper.” “Heartstopper,” all of us were new to the industry. We’re all so green — especially in Season 1. We’re all not now; we’re all sour, old …
Cox: … cynical divas.
Locke: I used to love the original [“Daredevil” on Netflix].
Cox: How old were you? Four or five?
Locke: I was 12. My mum still wouldn’t let me watch it. But I used to love how gory it was and how grown up. Because I was a very grown-up kid, so I liked watching grown-up stuff. I liked how real it was. And your performance is so grounded in the realness.
Cox: It’s funny how you happen upon things that end up striking a chord with audiences. We didn’t have the same budget as Marvel Studios, so everything had to be practical. We didn’t have any CGI. And it’s bizarre, therefore, that one of the things the show has been beloved for is how authentic a lot of it feels — particularly the action.
Locke: It’s some of the best fight scenes on TV! What was it like coming back to do it this time?
Cox: My body is not what it was, so the recovery time takes a little bit longer. But I’m so aware of there being a shelf life on how long you get to play a part that has not only beautifully written scene work [but also] fully developed characters and relationships between them all. It literally feels like a different side to the show where I suit up and I do all this cool action.
Locke: Did you think it would come back?
Cox: No. Never.
Locke: Really?
Cox: I was absolutely shocked. It was the middle of COVID. I was in the garden, and my phone rang. I hadn’t heard from anyone from Marvel for two years at least. The last phone call I’d had was “We’re sorry, but the show’s been canceled.”
And then Kevin Feige calls. He wasn’t involved with the original show, because it was Marvel Television, which was a different studio at the time. I’d met Kevin — had a two-minute conversation with him when he came to see a play I was in — but we didn’t talk about “Daredevil.” Two years had to pass before they could contact me about it. So he was like, “Do you want to come back and do some more?” I was absolutely blown away. Couldn’t believe it.
And then I didn’t hear anything for three months, so I started to question whether I’d dreamed that.
Peggy Sirota for Variety
Locke: That sounds so Marvel.
Cox: It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Locke: When you were doing the original series, did it feel like you were slightly outsiders of the MCU? What’s the difference between then and now?
Cox: We always used to joke about feeling like we’re the stepkids.
Locke: Now does it feel like you’re in?
Cox: It does. It feels a little bit more like we’re a part of the fam. I’m not on social media, so I don’t really follow this conversation, but I know from other castmates that it’s important to the fan base that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is all connected. So there was a lot of pleasure from the fans that the previous show was considered canon.
Locke: It’s a nice little thing to feel a part of. I feel very cool to be a slight part of this huge thing.
Cox: The fans are so passionate, and they’re very vocal. So when they like something, it’s genuinely moving. Like, “Oh, wow, this means a huge amount to people.”
“Agatha” was fantastic, a really great example of Marvel Television getting it right.
Locke: I feel like “Agatha” was my drama school. All of these incredible artists I was just leeching off.
Cox: When you first start working in this industry, you get cast very close to who you are. As you work more and more, the industry allows you to try more things. And you want to do different characters and play parts that you wouldn’t necessarily have been cast in early on. Daredevil is a really good example of that for me. He’s so different from who I am. There are so many elements to it that I completely had to learn and investigate and kind of invent.
Locke: At the moment, a lot of the auditions I get sent are for the same skinny gay twinks — which is great. And I’m really good at playing that, because I am a skinny gay twink. I’m struggling now [because] I want to do the opposite of that. I’ve been trying to put on weight recently. I just can’t do it. I know it’s like, “Oh, my metabolism’s too fast …” In 10 years, I’m sure I’ll be like, “God, I wish!”
Cox: Yeah, you’ll wish you could go back to being skinny.
Locke: But I’m eating so much food, and it’s just not happening.
Peggy Sirota for Variety
Cox: I remember when I got “Daredevil,” I was 160 pounds, which is not tiny, but it’s way less than I [weigh] now. They needed me to put on significant muscle quite quickly, and it was really hard. It was a lot of protein shakes. I’d never had a protein shake in my life, and I’d never been to the gym. I did sports and yoga and stuff, but I’d never lifted weights. Now, in the last 10 years, it’s been a staple of my life. It’s literally transformed my body, for good probably.
Locke: I thought when I was getting “Agatha,” like, “Great, I’m going to get paid to go and put on loads of muscle.” And they’re like, “Oh, no, no …” I was like, “Great, cool. Thanks, guys.”
Cox: That’s funny. Do you have examples of people whose career you look at and go, “In the perfect scenario, that’s the career I want”? Or “That’s the direction I want to go in”?
Locke: I’m so worried about being boxed in. I’m really grateful that I’ve been able to play loads of great queer characters, but I don’t want that to define my career.
Cox: Understood.
Locke: I look at Colman Domingo. He is an incredible openly queer person, but his casting is so diverse and so different, which is so great. He plays the abusive husband in “The Color Purple,” then plays an amazing character in other things. Or Jonathan Bailey.
What I like about [my character on “Agatha”] is his queerness isn’t a defining feature.
Cox: Not at all.
Locke: The whole point of representation is to change people’s opinions about things. You can’t do that without positive representation where it’s just a part of them. It’s great that Marvel felt willing to have that sort of representation on-screen.
Cox: Well, for what it’s worth, I think you’re too talented to be boxed in.
