Social media personality Dylan Mulvaney has launched a new podcast and lined up Joe Locke as her first guest.
Mulvaney has recently released her autobiography Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer which documents her gender transition, her early life and more recently dealing with the fallout from relentless attacks from conservative media and right-wing politicians.
The musical theatre actor came to prominence through her daily videos which documented her gender transition. She was invited to speak to US President Joe Biden about transgender rights and was caught up in a media firestorm when a collaborative Instagram post with a beer brand went south.
The first episode of The Dylan Hour was spent with Heartstopper and Agatha All Along actor Joe Locke.
Mulvaney explains the concept of the show as a “retro cocktail hour” where “we sit, and we spill with some of my favourite humans.”
The influencer said she wanted to start a podcast to be a counterpoint to all the right-wing podcasts that spent their time talking about her, but promised the main focus of her chats would be frivolous fun.
Locke shared that the pair had been hanging out together and often stay in each other’s homes in London and Los Angeles.
The actor spoke about how being in Heartstopper had changed his social media presence.
“Before Heartstopper I had like the normal amount of 800 Instagram followers. When the show got announced, over the year from it being announced to it coming out I gained like 100,000.
“Then I went from 100,000 on the day of release to 3.5 million two days later, and since then whenever something gets released, I’ll gain followers, but I lose like 20,000 followers a day.” Locke said.
Locke said the loss of followers used to trouble him, but now he just finds it funny.
Locke also shares that his life changed dramatically after he was cast in Heartstopper. After the first season he returned to his home in the Isle of Mann to finish his schooling but later moved to London.
For filming Agatha All Along he moved to Atlanta in the USA for six months. He got the role in the Marvel series after nine auditions. During the filming he became close friends with Broadway legend Patti LuPone.
A love of Broadway is something Locke and Mulvaney share, Locke appeared in the recent production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, while Mulvaney was previously in the touring production of Book of Mormon.
For her second episode Mulvaney’s guest was her dad, Jim.
