Starring in an MCU series doesn’t open all the doors in the multiverse, Joe Locke learned. In an interview on the Scene Stealers podcast, Locke confessed that he had tried to sneak onto the set of The Thunderbolts when it was filming near Agatha All Along. He said he was turned away by security before he could see anything significant.
Locke is 21 years old, which means he has basically grown up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He said that he is a big fan and he particularly loved Black Widow, so he is excited for the return of Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova in The Thunderbolts. He said: “They started filming that just after we finished. So I was like – one day they were on the same set as us, so I was trying to sneak up on the sets.”
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Lock said he was spotted on the set immediately, as security and secrecy are a big deal to Marvel Studios. He said: “They were like, ‘Go away, go away!’ And I was like, ‘What, I just want to have a look.’”
Locke could soon become one of the biggest stars in the MCU depending on where the stories take him. Over the course of Agatha All Along, he went from “Teen” to Billy Kaplan to Billy Maximoff – the son of the Scarlet Witch with the alias Wiccan. In some Marvel Comics stories, he is an incredibly powerful hero with a pivotal role to play, so he could be seeing more closed sets than he bargained for.
At the same time, Marvel is infamous for guarding its secrets carefully – even from the actors themselves. In the past, the studio has handed out decoy scripts to keep the cast and crew in the dark about what is going on, and their non-disclosure agreements are incredibly strict. Back in 2022, Moon Knight star Ethan Hawke avoided even commenting on what it’s like to work with Marvel Studios for fear of violating his NDA, telling Indie Wire: “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
That same year, Marvel attorney Paul Sarker spoke to Comicbook.com about the true intentions of these NDAs. While an actor could hypothetically be on the hook for lost revenue on a billion-dollar movie if they leak a spoiler, Sarker theorized that the real risk was losing future work. He said: “The other thing you risk is the relationship, right? Let’s say you haven’t been cast and they send you a script and you’re being tested, or they send you a link to some secure site where you can get a script and you can do maybe a table read or whatever online. If you then leak that information, A) they could sue you, and B) they’re probably not going to want to work with you because you’re not someone that could be trusted. If they bring you in and give you more, they need to be able to trust you to sort of bring you in and on the team.”
Thankfully, Locke’s curiosity does not seem to have gotten him into any trouble like that. Agatha All Along is streaming now on Disney+. The Thunderbolts hits theaters on May 2, 2025.