Darren Criss says he’s “culturally queer” & playing gay on ‘Glee’ was a “privilege”

It was f***ing awesome [playing a gay teen on Glee opposite Chris Colfer]. Nowadays, we just call it a relationship on TV. But to contextualize it, a gay relationship on mainstream Fox, that’s a pretty cool thing to be a part of.

I have been so culturally queer my whole life. Not because I’m trying — you know, actually, I was gonna say not because I’m trying to be cool but I’m gonna erase that, because I am trying to be cool. 90 percent of the s*** in my life that I have tried to emulate, learn from and be inspired by are 100 percent queer as f***.

It was in queer communities that I’ve found people that I idolize, that I want to learn something from. And I’d say that’s a gross generalization, that’s a lot of things and a lot of people. But I grew up in San Francisco in the ’90s. I watched men die, my uncles were dying. There was an awareness of the gay experience that was not a foreign concept to me. So, it was a narrative that I cared deeply about.

People of all ages, all spectrums of queerness say, ‘I didn’t grow up with a show like that and it was a really meaningful thing for me to see,’ and I go I didn’t grow up with a show like that and that would’ve been very meaningful for me too.

Regardless of the fact that I’m a straight kid. That has value. For anyone who’s been an underdog, we all know, in any shape or form — sexual, religious, biological — it has value because there’s going to be a lot of people who see that and say, ‘Okay, I can now understand this in a context that maybe I wasn’t able to before.’

It was a f-ing privilege and I love talking about it and I’m so grateful I got to do it.

Darren Criss speaking at a panel at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo about how LGBTQ+ allyship is at his core and why he’s so proud of his work on Glee.