This interview with Jenny Walser was conducted in October 2024, just ahead of the premiere of Heartstopper Season Three. Since then, Walser has continued to captivate audiences with her portrayal of Tori Spring, who took on a more prominent role in the latest season. Additionally, she starred as Zofia in the German crime thriller mini-series The Next Level, which premiered in January 2025. Looking ahead, Walser is expected to reprise her role as Tori in the upcoming Heartstopper feature film, announced by Netflix as the series’ final chapter.
Rising to fame as the breakout star of Netflix’s Heartstopper, Jenny Walser is proving herself to be a dynamic force in the acting world. Her portrayal of Tori Spring, the fiercely protective yet introspective older sister, has struck a chord with audiences. In the third season, Tori’s complexity deepens, and so does Jenny’s magnetic presence. Navigating the world of Zoom auditions and eyeing future transformative roles, Jenny is shaping a career defined by versatility and fearless exploration.
Over jacket and skirt : Courreges
Boots : Fairfax and Favor
Watch : Cartier
“I actually remember the first day I met anyone in person for season one of the show as all our auditions had been on Zoom. I walked into an old school hall in (town) Slough, where all the other core cast had been rehearsing together already, so I felt a bit strange, like that first day of being at school,” recounts Jenny Walser aka Tori Spring of hit LGBTQ series, Heartstopper. Season Three of the Netflix global audience winner launches beginning October.
Born in Westminster, London, Walser, 29, is animatedly talking to me over Zoom from the same “rudimentary” background set up she had for her audition in front of screenwriter Alice Oseman (writer of the graphic novels and web comic), casting director Daniel Edwards and director Euros Lyn. “It’s as strange as you think,” she admits of the process, “you are in a virtual waiting room, sitting nervously in your own home, I remained sat as (Tori) is quite a stationary character, and you have to work out a suitable set up and lighting.”
Walser had a peripatetic trajectory to the teen drama, which has caught the imagination of a Gen Z generation, navigating the struggles of teenage self-discovery, heightened by the toxic effects of social media and confused gender identity discussions. Having attended the Rona Hart School of Dance and RADA youth company as a child, Walser had a change of heart, taking up a Natural Science degree at Durham University, where she graduated in 2016, before returning to stage with the National Youth Theatre REP company. In an uncanny twist of fate, Oseman was in the same year at Durham university. “Our colleges were a three-minute walk away, there is no way we didn’t pass each other on the street” she astounds.
Walser has a twist of her character’s (Tori Spring) quirkiness; jet dark hair, porcelain skin and deep set eyes, she comes off as grounded yet worldly for a young actor that has been immediately thrust into a global audiences’ consciousness via the streamer service: “I would say disappointingly my life is actually pretty normal still compared to the central characters, Joe (Locke) and Kit (Connor) {who play Charlie Spring and Nick Nelson respectively}” she quips, “I think it’s handy I don’t really come across like my character in real life so I have been able to fly under the radar.”
Shoes : Casadei
Jacket : Gant
Earrings : Self portrait
That might all change with the release of Season three as we see Tori Spring – who previously has been a supporting act character featuring as Charlie’s older confidante sister – come into her own. In the new episodes (no spoilers) Tori Spring gets her own character arc, in which she is no longer witty foil to her screen brother, with her characteristic dry humour, but goes on her own path of self-discovery through both Charlie and her own male relationship, “I think she’s completely confused by his (Michael) presence in her life. She’s grown used to not having many friends, being fiercely independent, and then this guy comes along who just won’t quit pursuing her and she finds herself really drawn to him.”
So how could Walser immerse herself into the character with little to go on apart from Oseman’s graphic illustrations? I ask if she shadowed a sibling of a gay teen to understand the shifting and dysfunctional family dynamics. “No, I have a sister and just instinctively felt very protective of Joe (Locke). Having the illustrations was so helpful as they are so in depth so I could really draw on details such as whether she smirks, smiles, or even shows her teeth in any moment! Also Tori is the main character in Alice Osman’s first novel Solitaire (which ignited the idea for the Heartstopper book), which I had read during Covid.” Since unusually Oseman, the novel writer, is also the Heartstopper screenwriter, “she was on set assuring us that the characters were ours to expand, we didn’t have to stick to a paint by numbers approach by way of the written material.”
Throughout watching the Heartstopper seasons, I find myself contemplating just how much LGBTQ conversations have progressed for teens since my school days but am compelled by the well-executed scene in which Nick (Kit Connor) finally confesses his ‘bisexuality’ to mother (Olivia Colman). Walser agrees, “I think it’s naïve when people say the show is just for the younger generation. I regularly get DM’s on my Instagram from people who are not school age but have found profound healing and catharsis through the show. I do try to answer as many of them as I can.”
As for the unenviable position that young actors now find themselves in, having to navigate being a ‘face’ on Instagram with the mystery required to be believable on screen, Walser admits “it’s a real thing to juggle and I definitely haven’t got the balance right. I think there’s a misperception that if you have a lot of followers you automatically get lots of work, which isn’t actually the case.”
She continues, “I’ve always had a desire to shapeshift and play a lot of different people and with social media you get rid of that illusion, which is a shame.” Walser’s “shapeshifting” so far has included a well-received play run of The Narcissistby Christopher Shinn which charts post digital approaches to political and personal communication – with Walser playing a mid-20 something drug addict. And The Next Level, an episodical series shot in Berlin, on and off during filming for Heartstopper Season Three, where she features as one half of an American couple alongside actor Ben Lloyd Hughes.
Shoes and belt: Fairfax and Favor
Earrings: Crystal Haze
Currently Walser’s having a bit of a break, she admits to dealing with the uncertainty of the acting profession by self-talk, “whether it is true or not, I remind myself what is meant for you won’t go by and that there is room for everyone.” Walser considers, “I think it is the worst thing if actors in the room start getting competitive with their peers, actors really should be sharing experiences not gatekeeping.” In a dream world, she would love to do an independent film next as she’s only worked on episodical projects up to now, “there are some amazing independent female filmmakers I would love to work with like Molly Manning Walker and Rose Glass.”
Having ‘carried’ Tori Spring with her for so long I ask how she detaches from a character. Walser muses, “Recently I have become obsessed with Formula 1, I think Lewis Hamilton who I saw win at Silverstone this year is the GOAT, I find it a good way to distract myself from show business.”
Photographer
Olivia Possert
Stylist
Adele Cany
Make-up Artist
Lisa Potter-Dixon at A Frame Agency using Dior Beauty
Hair Stylist
Ross Kwan at A Frame Agency using Dyson Hair Pro and Oribe
Stylist Assistant
Giovanna Piergallini
