“I ended up moving out”: Joe Locke Faced a Huge Problem on ‘Agatha All Along’ Set That Billy Maximoff Could Resolve in a Second
- Joe Locke talks about working with Evan Peters.
- Jac Schaeffer always knew she wanted Billy Maximoff to have his own episode.
- The creator and executive producer of the show were highly impressed by Joe Locke.
Marvel Television’s first mini-series, Agatha All Along, starring Kathryn Hahn, Joe Locke, Aubrey Plaza, and more, is a spin-off series from WandaVision. Created by Jac Schaeffer, the series shares the continuity with the film franchise. Agatha All Along premiered on September 18, 2024, and has received positive responses from the critics as well as the audience.
The series follows Agatha Harkness escaping the town of Westview, New Jersey, after being trapped in it for three years. Harkness and The Teen form a coven of witches to face the trials of the legendary Witches’ Road. The Teen was recently revealed to be Billy Maximoff, a.k.a., Scarlet Witch’s son. Actors on the show have been praised for their work, and recently, Joe Locke talked about working with Evan Peters.
Agatha All Along creator Jac Schaeffer says she always wanted a Billy-centric episode
Marvel Television’s Agatha All Along, starring Joe Locke, Kathyrn Hahn, Aubrey Plaza, and more, has been one of the most anticipated shows of 2024, and upon its release, it did not disappoint. The series holds about an 82% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Episode 6 titled Familiar by Thy Side reveals the real identity of Locke, who played the goth Teen to be Billy Maximoff, (formerly known as William Kaplan) i.e., Scarlet Witch’s son.
The series creator, Jac Schaeffer, in her conversation with Marvel, touched upon dedicating an entire episode to Billy Maximoff and his emotional origin story. She noted that she had always wanted the character to have his focused episode, which explores how Billy/William Kaplan endured and came to realize his magical inheritance.
The creator, Jac Schaeffer, and the executive producer, Mary Livanos, shared that while developing episode sixth of Agatha All Along, they made comparisons to WandaVision’s episode fourth. In the fourth episode of WandaVision, the characters break out of the sitcom, and a flashback sequence shows the audience where it all started. They wanted to structure a similar episode for Agatha All Along and further shared,
I wanted to give him [Billy] his own episode in that way so we could stop, rewind, and understand this very complex journey. Up until that point, he’s been painted as a familiar; he’s been infantilized and underestimated. So to feel that change, we needed to feel his whole story in episode 6.
The creator further shared with Marvel that while they were developing the show, they realized that they needed an actor who could handle all the magic’s highs and lows. Heartstopper actor Joe Locke managed to impress the makers as Schaeffer explains that she got chills during Locke’s chemistry read with Kathryn Hahn. She recalled,
We did a comedy scene, and they had great charisma. He was so charming. And then we did a dramatic scene, and it felt like the molecules in the room shifted. He’s a very animated, fidgety person, but when it’s time to act in a deep, dramatic moment, he goes still in a way where you’re pulled into him.
She noted that Locke had everything they needed to play the son of the Scarlet Witch. Livanos gifted Locke a copy of Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (2010) which he said helped him inform his portrayal.
Joe Locke talks about working with Evan Peters on Agatha All Along
According to BuzzFeed, the creator of the show always wanted to bring back Evan Peters’ Ralph Bohner, but they weren’t sure how or when he’d show up. After a brainstorming session, they concluded that Bohner would be the right person to fill in Billy Maximoff on the entire situation with WestView during WandaVision.
In his Marvel podcast interview, the young actor was asked about his experience working with Evan Peters. Locke described Peters as an amazing actor, noting it was great working with him. Talking about filming a specific scene in episode 6 where Billy Maximoff meets Ralph Bohner in a dimly lit parking lot to learn about witchcraft, Bohner fills him in on the prequel series’ events. Locke said,
I think the key to what makes it so funny is he [Peters] takes it so seriously in the character of Ralph, which is not funny to him, which is what makes it so hilarious when he grabs the thing that starts shaking. It was just funny, a great day. I was staying in this high-rise building when we got to Atlanta, and my car kept getting broken. It happened twice in a week, and we filmed that scene in that parking lot. I ended up moving out because I was like, I can’t live somewhere; my car keeps getting broken.
He added that they filmed the scene in that parking lot, so it was funny to him when he realized that he could have just stayed in that place and used the elevator to come down to work. Writer Jason shared with BuzzFeed that it was really interesting to write Peter’s character back in the story. He added,
We just got to have a lot of fun with it, like bringing a mention of Sparky [Wanda’s dog] back. I got to kind of touch the highlights of WandaVision with that. And that was a lot of fun.
The writer mentioned that he went back to watching WandaVision to figure out who Bohner was, but it was challenging because the audience only met him for 10 seconds. He noted he tried to kind of build Bohner’s character around the emotional aspect of being fully possessed by a witch and moved around like a character in a show. Rest, everything he said started to fall into pieces on its own.
Agatha All Along is streaming on Disney+.
