The Creative Outlet
Heartstopper William Gao –
staged increative outlet by Rui Faria
Early in March, I was approached by Georgia Cooke from Public Eye asking if I still shoot for Vogue Thailand and whether I’d be interested in photographing William Gao, from the Netflix sensation HEARTSTOPPER.
I immediately contacted the editor in chief of Vogue Thailand, who was keen to feature the rising young star on the upcoming issue of Vogue Men. Additionally world famous jewellery brand Cartier collaborated on the shoot.
It was an absolute pleasure to work with William on the day of the shoot, he arrived by himself, no entourage, just his publicist Georgia who’d initially contacted me to arrange the shoot.
William was incredibly charming and extremely professional, took directions well (he’s a natural) and very generous with his time and patience. As well as shooting the stills, we also shot a video which required changing the lights quite often.
During the lunch break William and I engaged in a small conversation, asked me how long I’d been a photographer, I told him that I’d originally wanted to be a film director, and that I’d gone to film school, half way through my studies I decided to switch to still photography.
He also talked about the hardious long hours of being on a film set vs shooting stills.
William is a brilliant actor well known for his role of Tao Xu in Netflix’s LGBTQ+ global sensation HEARTSTOPPER, for which he was nominated at the Children’s & Family Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor.
William is going to reprise his role for the second season, confidentially releasing in August. This season will focus on his character, we’d love to discuss a feature tied to release.
He will also appear in feature film SUNRISE opposite Guy Pearce and Alex Pettyfer; a completely different project from HEARTSTOPPER. William has an incredibly exciting career ahead of him.
Alongside his acting career, Will is in a musical duo WASIA PROJECT with his sister Olivia Hardy, their single “my lover is sleeping” is OUT NOW
He’s a very special talent.
Will has a Chinese mother and British father, and he attended the National Youth Theatre.“
