NEWS

14 SEPTEMBER 2024

Meet RHEA NORWOOD: How the 23-year-old went from landing a breakout role in the Netflix hit Heartstopper while still in drama school to getting recognised by strangers in spin class

On Rhea Norwood’s 22nd birthday, she celebrated by seeing a few of her friends and family and eating a Colin the Caterpillar cake from M&S. However, this June, when she turned 23, the festivities were somewhat more exciting; on the night of her birthday, Norwood made her West End debut as Sally Bowles, the female lead in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Eddie Redmayne, currently playing the Emcee in the Broadway version of the production, sent her a good luck email. ‘That,’ says Norwood, ‘was the best birthday present ever.’ Although, she clarifies, ‘I do love a Colin the Caterpillar.’

Cabaret aside, Norwood is best known for playing Imogen Heaney in the Netflix drama series Heartstopper. If you don’t recognise her, your grandchildren will. The book series it was adapted from – written by British author Alice Oseman, 29 – was already a hit with Gen Zs. (So far her novels have sold eight million copies and been translated into 37 languages.) When season one arrived in April 2022, it was viewed for a spectacular 53 million hours within its first month, making it then the fifth most-watched English-language Netflix show in history.

The story is about two British schoolboys, Nick and Charlie, who fall in love with one another. Norwood’s character, Imogen, is a classmate with a crush on Nick.

Norwood has some well-known co-stars: Olivia Colman plays a mother, Stephen Fry a headmaster – and Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey was such a fan of the first two seasons he asked the producers if he could have a part in series three, which comes out on 3 October. Norwood is tight-lipped about whether she shares any scenes with the actor, but confirms that she met him on set: ‘He’s lovely. He’s very, very lovely.’

Heartstopper was Norwood’s first professional acting job. She grew up in a village in Surrey with her parents, who both work as primary-school teachers, and her elder brother, who is a firefighter. The young Norwood was obsessed with acting. ‘I was never the popular girl at school, though I had some lovely friends. But I just always wanted to be an actor,’ she says. ‘I think that, maybe, when you know what you want to do and you can’t do it because you’re at school, that can make you feel like you are outside [things].’

Norwood had zero connection to the industry (although her mother does direct the school play). After leaving her state secondary school in 2019, she attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which today has an alumni page on its website with photographs of notable graduates, or, as they put it, ‘a multitude of glittering stars’. Scroll down the list and you’ll see Daniel Day-Lewis, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Jeremy Irons, Theo James, Josh O’Connor – and Rhea Norwood.

She spotted the Heartstopper job in February 2021, during her second year at drama school, through an open casting call on Twitter. The advert wasn’t for the role of Imogen but another character called Darcy, who was described as having a bob. Norwood, who had long hair and was experiencing a ‘Covid identity crisis’, decided she would hack off her hair before filming her self-tape. This being lockdown, she had to do it herself – at home, with kitchen scissors. ‘Do you know what,’ she says, ‘it actually looked all right! My mum had to trim the back a bit.’

Norwood sent the tape and Netflix asked her if she could do a call-back on Zoom – this time for the role of Imogen. Most drama schools don’t like pupils taking time off to do professional work, so Norwood made sure hers was happy for her to film for around three months. Four days after the call-back she was told she’d got the part. She had never, throughout the entire process, met any of the Heartstopper cast or crew in person.

The first season was largely shot in a secondary school in Slough. That’s glamorous, I say, and Norwood laughs. ‘Yeah, yeah. Big Netflix job. “Where are we going? Where are you sending me? Slough…”’ Thankfully, things have since become more exotic; for season two, the cast went to Paris and filmed inside the Louvre.

Heartstopper has made its stars – most of whom were teenagers when it began – famous. Really, truly famous. Norwood was signed with Independent, the same glitzy agency that represents Gillian Anderson, Rachel Weisz and Sophie Turner. Joe Locke (the 20-year-old who plays Charlie) will star in the new Marvel miniseries Agatha All Along and last month was on the front cover of Rolling Stone. Kit Connor (also 20), who plays Nick, now fronts campaigns for the luxury fashion house Loewe.

The young cast were all ‘very well nurtured’ by the crew, says Norwood, but it still seems that fame is complicated. Connor, who plays a bisexual character on the show, was hounded online by fans who saw paparazzi photos of him holding a girl’s hand. They assumed he was straight in real life and accused him of ‘queerbaiting’ (when a straight person is purposefully ambiguous about their sexuality to attract queer fans). Connor responded with a tweet: ‘I’m bi. Congrats for forcing an 18-year-old to out himself.’

‘I really can’t comment on that,’ says Norwood of Connor, ‘or for anyone else, to be honest. I think everybody in the public eye is navigating people’s perceptions of them.’ She is, unsurprisingly, guarded about her personal life. ‘I don’t enjoy being perceived. I don’t mind standing on stage as a character; I’ll give you the whole thing. I’ll be as vulnerable as you want me to be. But in terms of, like, me…’ and at this she trails off.

Norwood says her life doesn’t feel different now that she’s well-known, and she seems very unstarry on the YOU photo shoot. All the team remark how polite she is and, as the photographs finish, before our interview begins, she immediately changes out of the Emporio Armani jacket she’s wearing into a baggy jumper and trousers. (That said, maybe most clothes seem baggy on Norwood; she’s teeny-tiny in person: no more than 5ft 2in.)

People do recognise her, though. Recently she was at a spin class near where she lives in London and, before it started, the woman on the bike next to her leaned over and said, ‘Has anyone ever told you that you look like the girl from Heartstopper?’ Norwood laughs. ‘I’m a terrible liar, I cannot lie, so I was just like: “Ahh, yeah.” Then she asked, “Are you the girl from Heartstopper?” And I went, “Ahh, yeah.” Then I thought, “And now you are going to see me get really sweaty.”’

At the time of writing, Norwood has some 460,000 Instagram followers. I have 413 and find Instagram a bit stressful. I cannot conceive how weird it must be to have so many strangers watching you.

Does she feel an obligation to entertain her followers with snippets of her private life? ‘Not really,’ she replies. ‘I didn’t sign up to be an influencer. I don’t want to be an influencer. I want to be an actor. I want my work to speak for myself.’

Fair enough but, still, does she not worry she’ll get drunk and accidentally post something stupid to the best part of half a million people? ‘Well, I’m not drinking right now because of the show and I’m also a Type 1 diabetic [she was diagnosed in July 2022]. So, alas, my days of drama-school heavy drinking are over! I do drink, just in moderation because I’ve got to be careful with the old blood sugars.’ Nonetheless, Norwood understands the anxiety: ‘I often delete the Instagram app for weeks at a time,’ she says. ‘I’m trying to be more in the present.’