This week, we’re bracing ourselves to say goodbye to our favorite boyfriends Nick Nelson & Charlie Spring in Heatstopper Forever, Netflix’s feature-length finale to their adaptation of Alice Oseman’s beloved teen romance graphic novels.
Over three season thus far, we’ve watched Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke) come into their own as they fall in love, and the series has done a beautiful job of making us feel all warm & fuzzy without ignoring the realities of being a queer teenager, addressing issues around bullying, mental health, and intimacy.
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And as the characters continue to grow up and look toward the future in Forever, it’s only natural that said intimacy becomes a bigger part of their lives. In a new preview feature with The Guardian, the stars teased that, in keeping with the series’ sense of authenticity, there’d be “a lot more sex” in the film:
“It would be weird if we hadn’t shown it,” Locke says in defense. “Just because our show is a more earnest version of a queer representation doesn’t mean that sex [shouldn’t be shown]. It’s still a big thing for anyone in the world.”
So, it’s fitting then that Forever has handed over the reins to a new director—one who’s very familiar with filming sex scenes…
Who is Heartstopper Forever director Wash Westmoreland?
After Euros Lyn (Dream Horse) helmed all episodes of Heartstopper Seasons 1 & 2 and Andy Newbery stepped in for 3, Netflix brought tapped out filmmaker Wash Westmoreland to direct the grand finale.
Westmoreland is perhaps best known for directing Still Alice with his husband Richard Glatzer, the 2014 drama about a woman—played by Julianne Moore—and her family coming to terms with her early onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Glatzer himself was diagnosed with ALS shortly before they began pre-production, giving the story a deeper resonance for the couple, and when Moore won her Best Actress Oscar for the role in 2015, she dedicated her award to him. Sadly, he passed just 16 days later.
Since then, Westmoreland has continued working in film & TV, directing the Keira Knightly-starring queer author biopic Colette (a movie which makes a brief cameo in Heartstopper Forever!) and the psychological thriller Earthquake Bird with Alicia Vikander.
But, long before the filmmaker developed a reputation for making prestigious features with awards-caliber actresses, he got his start in the industry in a very different genre: Gay adult films!
When he moved from England to America in the ’90s, one of his first jobs was as a camera assistant on Hustler White, a satirical dark comedy from queer provocateur Bruce LaBruce (starring Madonna’s ex fling Tony Ward, by the way!). Inspired to eventually make his own film about sex work, Westmoreland began dabbling in the industry for research, directing gay erotica under the abbreviated alias “Wash West” and later the moniker “Bud Light.”
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Wash Westmoreland’s Spicy History
By the late ’90s, Westmoreland was pretty prolific in that space, making what we’re sure many consider to be classics, with titles like Toolbox, Devil Is A Bottom, and Dr. Jerkoff & Mr. Hard. And in fact, his X-rated output has been heralded as elevating the form while bucking many of the industry’s convention at the time.
For example, one of his later works was a 2003 sex parody of The Ring called The Hole—we’ll hold for applause. In it, a group of straight jocks (including future Million Dollar Listing New York star Fredrik Eklund, who is gay) watch a mysterious grainy video tape, only to be told they’ll turn gay in seven days, which brilliantly skewers the homophobic stereotype that merely watching something queer could “turn” a heterosexual.
To give you an idea of the level of genius we’re talking about here, check out this (safe for work!) clip, where one dude decides to test his friend’s straightness by asking if he’d rather watch a video of wrestling cheerleaders or a tape of Judy Garland live at Carnegie Hall.
Like! That is next-level gay comedy right there!
Eventually, Westmoreland would get to direct the feature he set out to make in the first place, 2001’s The Fluffer, his first film in collaboration with his future husband Richard Glatzer. It follows a young LA transplant (Michael Cunio) who gets hired to help with “fluffing” on an adult film set, only to fall for a gay-for-pay star (Scott Gurney), leading them both down a dark path (which somehow involves Blondie icon Debbie Harry in a supporting role).
“Wash West” Forever
On one hand, it’s hard to believe the man behind such sexy, seedy stories like this would go on the direct the heartbreaking Alzheimer’s drama that would finally win Julianne Moore her long overdue Oscar. Yet it’s not that much of a stretch, is it?
In a 2018 piece for Inside Hook, writer Thelma Adams argues Westmoreland’s adult past made him a particularly adept filmmaker when it came to capturing intimacy and eroticism in his later, more mainstream work like Colette:
“The choreography of sex as a building block of story and narrative tension is central to the genre,” Adams wrote. “And that experience—and Westmoreland’s apparent comfort with fluid gender identities—makes him an ideal director for tackling a looser-limbed Colette biopic.”
It also, we imagine, makes him a particularly good fit for Heartstopper Forever. While Nick & Charlie’s so-called “sex scenes” in the film are far less racy that, say, something you might see in Westmoreland’s ’02 classic P*rn Academy, the director sure knows how to bring an artful eye to to the couples’ most intimate moments, staging them sensitively and sensually.
And, really, the whole reason the world fell in love with Heartstopper in the first place was because of how authentic its coming-of-age story of young love feels. So we’re glad to know the finale’s in good hands, with an out, queer director who has brought authenticity to all that he does, from artful dramas to Dr. Jerkoff & Mr. Hard.
Heartstopper Forever premieres July 17, exclusively on Netflix.
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Everything we know about ‘Heartstopper Forever’ (so far!)
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