“I don’t think that’s right at all. My feeling has always been that I wouldn’t have missed the movie Behind the Candelabra [the Liberace biopic starring Matt Damon and Michael Douglas] for anything. As a gay man I was touched by both of their performances. Because acting is acting, and it’s great for gay people to play straight roles too.”–actor Rupert Everett, addressing the ongoing question of if directors should always cast gay actors in gay parts in a new interview with The Times. Everett has historically been very critical of homophobia in Hollywood, claiming that coming out as gay ruined his career. In the same interview, he also expressed regrets over becoming an actor at all, saying “I’m not very good” and “I’ve realized too late that I’m too shy.”
mastik8
Finally, some sense out of her.
Lightbulb
She’s been complaining for years…She needs to get her ass out there, be positive, a role model and the roles in movies and TV will come!
Enough Folks like Matt Bomer, Rannells etc., move forward!
Donston
What he’s saying makes sense. But it’s not really the whole picture or reflective of the whole conversation people are having. I would just like this topic to die, especially when it comes to actors and especially-especially when it comes to actors over 40. No matter what side of the debate they fall on, hardly any of them are discussing it with any real nuance or any real concern with all the issues people bringing up.
Liquid Silver
I, too, agree we should just throw away any opinions from and preferably kill anybody over 40 as completely useless and…
Do you ever listen to yourself? Oh, sorry, I’m sure I was too “stupid” to understand the nuance in the blatant ageism. Probably too dumb to understand the reply, which you can roll into a very tight ball and insert into the appropriate orifice.
MISTERJETT
gay actors portray straight characters all of the time. i say whoever is best in the audition should get the part whether they’re gay or straight.
Leo
Absolutely! As a gay actor I totally agree that the parts should go to the best person to represent the character.
Harley
Seems to work out fine for Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
Openminded
Totally agree with you. It’s all just about entertainment, so whoever can entertain me the best should get the job.
Liquid Silver
Yep. But the super-woke keep insisting that somehow, gay can only play gay but apparently gay can play straight.
I don’t think we want to go into the logical errors and fallacies in that statement. Then again, I’ve come to the conclusion that woke is more about “my way or the highway” than anything else.
cameronpeak
Invitation to a sex club – xmeet.fun
mikeTigg
Totally agree with him. Acting is acting. Many gay actors are also in straight roles. Luke Evans for example is openly gay and mostly is hired for straight roles.
Donston
There are some people who flat-out don’t want straight identifying actors to play “queer”, which is rather absurd. No one knows the dimensions of anyone’s sexuality, why someone embrace whatever identities they do, or where someone fits in the gender, romantic, sexual, affection, emotion, commitment spectrum. While demanding that they hire “gay” actors is limiting and forces people to have to tell intimate things about themselves that they shouldn’t feel the need to reveal.
But most of people’s issues are the fact that the majority of high-profile “gay roles” in movies go to “straight” actors, that gay identifying actors still have a limitation/ceiling to their careers and almost never get high profile leading roles as “straight” characters (and that includes the likes of Luke Evans, Matt Bomer, Neil Patrick Harris), that many actually effeminate male actors are losing effeminate characters to “straight” actors but also aren’t getting hired to play “straight” characters, that there are still no openly “gay”/unabashedly into his sex dudes are are getting big roles in major films, that Hollywood still promotes the closet, male homophobia and hetero pressures and masculine superiority. That’s really what most the discussion has been about. Hardly any of it has been about if “straight” people capable of playing “gay”. That narrative has cannibalized this dicsussion, especially after what Wentworth Miller said. But that’s not what most of the conversation throughout the years has been about.
If you’re not willing to dive into all of that, then you’re not actually having a real conversation about this.
CurtisIsTheOne
Thanks for speaking THE TRUTH!
Dymension
If you were to create a movie in which a female character had been raped, would your casting call for someone who had been raped so she can be more “believable”? If the movie calls for a drug addict, would you try to cast the part with a “real” drug addict? How about a criminal? A murderer? A politician? The President of the United States? A heterosexual person? There are wonderful actors out there perfectly capable of ACTING these parts without having lived the experience.
Heywood Jablowme
For a purely theoretical problem that has never actually happened and never WILL happen, this sure gets a lot of attention!
Ginger Tom
Acting is about acting something you are not necessarily, not necessarily about acting something you are.
jjose712
And he is right.
The problem is what it happens is almost the opposite and some of the ones preventing gay actors from getting the roles are gay producers and gay directors.
I don’t mind a good straight actor playing a gay role, specially someone who doesn’t seem ashamed for doing it (doesn’t have the need to mention his girlfriend at every moment or doesn’t have a problem with physical scenes), and that’s not always the case. And in those cases is difficult to understand why they got the role.
This won’t be a problem the moment good gay actors (and there’s a lot) start to get prominent gay roles on films, because the problem is on films way more than on tv shows (and the problem just doesn’t exist on theatre)
Cam
Queerty obviously has an agenda on this topic and most likely some of the writers have friends in the Hollywood PR. agencies etc. because you run literally the same article on this topic about once a month. You’ll take an interview with somebody and the headline is “So and so doesn’t think only queer actors should play queer roles”. I mean the exact same article.
Here’s the deal, Hollywood has been screening out LGBTQ actors for decades. Now that explicit bigotry isn’t allowed their excuse for not casting LGBTQ actors is to say, they need somebody REALLY famous for a part and there aren’t any LGBTQ actors big enough.
A self fulfilling prophecy. They prevented any Queer actors from getting big, now claim they can’t hire them because they aren’t big enough. How convenient.
Lastly, Hollywood hyperventilating and pretending that the 2 or 3 LGBTQ roles they cast every few years is going to mean thousands of straight actors don’t get hired shows that their bigotry is still going full force. Give me a list of the hundreds of straight actors put out of work because of the one low budget movie every two years that casts LGBTQ actors.
Jake123
@Cam but there are high profile gay actors. Maybe the reason these high profile gay actors e.g Luke Evans, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer aren’t playing Gay roles in Hollywood is because they don’t want to.
Cam
@Jake123
That is a bizarre comment since Zachary Quinto and Matt Bomer have played gay roles and Luke Evans was accused of hiding in the closet to help his career.
Additionally, those actors GOT more high profile by being closeted when they were cast in the roles that raised their stature. NOBODY is claiming that they would have gotten those roles if they were out. So you’ve basically proved my point.
Jake123
How many of these exact same stories have we seen here?? I think it’s up to gay actors. They don’t want to be typecast so if they’re happy the way things are well that’s good enough for me.
John
I agree. It defeats the whole purpose of acting if you have to be the thing you are playing. I don’t get it. It’s called acting after all.
Thad
Outgoing actors shouldn’t play shy characters.
aL2000
His career was not ruined by his coming out.It was due to his mediocre acting and awful choices in roles like that horrible movie with Madonna. As a matter of fact, the only role he really received notoriety for was for playing a gay man in My Best Friend’s Wedding. Good to see he finally admits he was not a very good actor.
.
Cam
That movie with Madonna was aweful.
Dannyzackery
Dude. Dude. First of all, don’t we all agree that the past when Rupert Everett came out was so homophobic that no one wanted him in their shows and films. The guy is a good actor who came out at the wrong era.
ScottOnEarth
He’s right! It’s as simple as the fact that acting is becoming someone else. To say that only gay actors can portray gay characters would then, of course, beg the question, should only straight actors play straight characters? This subject is really tiresome.
Cam
So you’re all in with Tim Allen playing Aretha Frankin in a bio pic?
arnieca
Queerty, it’s nice you are at least allowing opposing views in the comments for a change, as all my previous comments were censored. The article on the other hand is pure advocacy, even inserting the inflammatory phrase ‘force casting’ in the headline. That wording is sure to ring a bell with the Hollywood talent you’d like better access to. Which i assume is your purpose in continuing to push on this issue.
Can we assume ANYONE is ok in giving the title role in an MLK biopic to James Woods? If it’s only acting, why not have race-blind casting, as you push for orientation-blind casting?