Sitting down with The Guardian, Gatwa revealed that he “bombed” his first audition after reading that his character “must be hysterical.” His nerves persisted into the next round when he read lines with Connor Swindells, who plays his on-screen love interest, Adam Groff. “At that point, I looked bigger than Connor, so for the bullying scenes, I remember them stopping the audition and being like, we need something about the fact that you look like you could take him,” he explained. “I thought the role was gone.
And then I got another audition and that was the one I started twerking in.” Gatwa’s rollercoaster audition ended up with him securing the role and starring in two seasons of the series.