If it takes a whole colorful, joyful town to bring a story like Heartstopper to life, then Alice Oseman is that town’s (extremely cool) mayor. The author of the beloved webcomic — who also created and wrote the comic’s TV adaptation — spent every day on the set of Heartstopper and worked closely with the show’s producers, costume and prop teams and tight-knit cast to bring the story from web page to screen.

“I kind of feel like it’s my role to represent the comic and the readers, and I think that we achieved that,” Oseman says in a new behind-the-scenes featurette. Along with serving as a consultant for teams like art and costumes, she shared her perspective on scenes as they were shot and offered guidance to the show’s actors.

For Oseman, Heartstopper was always a passion project. “I literally was just making it for fun,” she previously told Tudum. “It brought me so much happiness.” And she wasn’t alone: The webcomic, which follows classmates Nick and Charlie as they form a gentle friendship and eventually fall in love, resonated with a loyal swath of readers. 

With the show, Oseman was excited to dig even deeper into side characters and subplots. “I like to think of it in that the TV show is an expanded version of the comic,” she says in the featurette. “We’ve just made the story bigger. We’ve made the world wider.”

For a closer-than-ever look into that world — plus, more of Oseman’s thoughts on adapting her story for TV and watching the cast become her characters — take a visit to the Heartstopper set in the video below.

On Set Of 'Heartstopper' With Alice Oseman