“I’m as chill as can be,” says Kit Connor, over Zoom from his South London home. The 19-year-old actor is, of course, much less busy these days, due to the ongoing SAG strike. So here Connor finds himself — having recently returned home from some travel and debating heading off to Italy with some friends next month — overall taking it easy.
“Nice and quiet,” he says.
Connor broke out on the Netflix show “Heartstopper,” and since then has become very in demand, both by the film and fashion worlds.
“I think it’s always been an interest and it’s just evolved over time,” he says of his relationship to fashion. “Maybe this is a sort of silly example, but I always remember I really loved any occasion that I could wear a suit. I’ve got recollections of being, like, four years old and wearing a bow tie to Christmas of my own decision. But I think it’s only in the last few years that I’ve really started to find my own style.”
He describes that as “old Hollywood with a twist,” citing James Dean as inspiration.
“I kind of will try my best to integrate that. But then in the last year or so, I’ve tried to not limit myself to a rule in fashion. I don’t want to be like, ‘OK, well I like old Hollywood, so I’m just going to stick to that.’ If you want to wear something, then you just got to do it and try it.”
Kit Connor, photographed on June 8 in New York City.
Ryan Williams/WWD
Jonathan Anderson has become a friend, ever since Connor took in a Loewe show as his very first fashion show.
“I was just blown away by the amazing work that I’ve seen of his,” he says of Anderson. “Even before I’d met him, I was already a fan, but ever since then, being able to see it in person I was really excited by what he does.”
He notes that these days it seems all the “It” girls are wearing Loewe and that Anderson seems to be setting all the trends.
“What I always have always seen about Jonathan is that he has such an eye for art in general, and he has such great taste. That art isn’t just with fashion, it’s in all aspects. I think he’s so consumed by art in a lot of ways, be it a film or a jacket or a painting or a poem, he’s just completely enthralled by it,” Connor says.
Connor first got into acting when he was around six years old and his parents sent him to a Saturday stage school to help him overcome his shyness with strangers.
“When I was in my family setting, I was really loud and annoying. But I was quite shy in that public setting,” he says. “So they sent me to this drama school, and then after a year or so of that, they had a sort of opening for a commercial and I just found myself going for it.”
One thing slowly led to another, and along the way Connor found himself enthralled.
“I just kind of fell in love with it through doing it. I found a real love for acting and being on a set just because I fell into it by accident,” he says.
Kit Connor, photographed on June 8 in New York City.
Ryan Williams/WWD
To this day, he feels less awkward being on set then he might in various real-life social situations.
“I feel like I know what to do and I know my place in that environment. Even now, I was actually talking to my friend about this the other night, sometimes when I’m in a sort of social environment or if I’m at some kind of party or an event or something, it certainly has taken me a while and I’m still trying to learn my place in that environment and how to act in that environment,” Connor says. “But when I’m on a set, I just know what I’m doing a little bit more. And I think in the least annoying, cliche, wanky way possible, it does kind of feel like a second home for me.”