Star of Netflix’s new supernatural fantasy thriller Locke & Key, all-Canadian boy Connor Jessup talks to Attitude about coming out, falling in love, and why acting is like chasing a breeze

Words Tim Heap Photography Taylor Miller Styling Joseph Kocharian Location The Standard, East Village, New York

Connor wears tee, by M&S Collection, jeans, by Levi’s

Connor wears knitwear and trousers, both by Dior, trainers, by Lacoste, socks, by Sockshop

After almost a decade in the works, Netflix premiered comic-book adaptation series Locke & Key in February, hoping that its horrortinged teen fantasy vibe will be a hit with fans of the original material and new audiences. Its bumpy gestation period included Fox and Hulu as potential homes, and big names such as Steven Spielberg and Andy Muschietti as producer and director. The final version has been headed up by show runners Carlton Cuse (Lost, Bates Motel) and Meredith Averill (The Haunting of Hill House) and leans into the story’s more fantastical elements over the horror and gore of Joe Hill’s original comics.

For those not up to speed with the plot, Locke & Key centres around the Locke family: recently widowed Nina and her three children Tyler, Kinsey and Bode. After witnessing the brutal, unexplained murder of their father, the family moves from Seattle to his ancestral home, Keyhouse, in Massachusetts, where the discovery of several keys with different magical powers results in a showdown with a malevolent entity seeking to use them.

Connor Jessup, 25, brings a nuanced performance to the role of eldest child Tyler, who is grappling with the effects of his new-found responsibility as the man of the house, the guilt he feels over his father’s death, as well all those normal pesky teenage problems. The Canadian-born actor, who splits his time between his home in Toronto and LA, hasn’t actually watched much of the show “I’ve been acting for a while now and I’ve come to learn that it tends to be healthier for me not to watch — it complicates my feelings towards a project; it’s better for me to just have my memories of an experience. Part of that is being an actor, and part of that is me. “Maybe in 10 years I’ll feel differently,” he adds.

Having been in the business since he was about 11, Connor has had notable roles in the Spielberg-executive produced post-apocalyptic series Falling Skies and anthology drama series American Crime. He’s also played gay characters, while distancing himself from questions about his own sexuality that arose in interviews until making the decision last summer to come out publicly via an Instagram post. Speaking of the realisation of his sexuality, he wrote: “I folded it and slipped it under the rest of my emotional clutter,” before going on to admit that with his background, “acceptance was never a question. But still, suspended in all this privilege, I balked.”