Billy Porter participated in the Hollywood Reporter Drama Actor Roundtable, and during the talk, he went off about the indignities gay actors must face in order to get roles.
The discussion involved Stephan James, Diego Luna, Sam Rockwell, Hugh Grant and Richard Madden (who recently played a gay role in the Elton John biopic Rocketman). It covered a wealth of topics.
Related: Red Carpet and “Pose” star Billy Porter is telling the queer stories we’e been waiting for
When the moderator asked Porter what made him continue going for on-screen roles after being passed up for numerous roles despite his illustrious theatre career, Porter responded:
How about we take this to the next level?
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“You know, it’s a double layer: the layer of actually being a person of color in this industry and then other the layer of being a queen. Nobody can see you as anything else. If ‘flamboyantly dot dot dot’ wasn’t in the description of the character, no one would see me, ever, for anything. Which wouldn’t be so enraging if it went the other direction, but it doesn’t. Because straight men playing gay, everyone wants to give them an award. ‘Thank you for gracing us with your straight presence.’ So that gets tiresome.
So here I sit: I can’t get the gay parts, I can’t get the straight parts, I can’t get nothing. The last pilot season I went through, it was that over and over and over and over again. It was a couple years ago, and my sister calls me on the phone, and she catches me right after one of those, like, dismissive ‘You’re too flamboyant’ calls. And I just went in. I was just crying. I had to pull the car over to the side of the road. I was like, ‘I can’t. I can’t!’ Like, your body doesn’t know that it’s not real. The emotions. It’s like, I can’t keep putting myself into this position where I’m always begging.
The next day, ring! Ryan Murphy wants to see you for a show called Pose. It’s set in the LGBTQ Paris is Burning ball culture, and I literally was like, ‘Okay, Lord, or the universe or whatever.’ It was literally like, you got to be kidding me.”
Here’s a video of Porter speaking his mind at the roundtable:
“Everybody wants to give them an award.” #PoseFX star @theebillyporter on the “enraging” double standard of straight men playing gay roles in Hollywood https://t.co/xsKCt1eu6H pic.twitter.com/QT3LXxCO5w
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) June 5, 2019
He’s not wrong about the award thing. In 2019, alone Olivia Coleman won an Oscar for playing a bisexual monarch in The Favourite, Mahershala Ali won his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing gay pianist Dr. Don Shirley in Green Book and Rami Malek won Best Actor in for playing bisexual rock icon and Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. Each of the actors is straight.
Marlon Brando, Kevin Spacey, Jodie Foster, Joel Grey, Anna Paquin, Angelina Jolie and Linda Hunt are the only out LGBTQ actors ever to have won Oscars for acting.
Cam
Also Hollywood will rally to protect any bigotry or defend against any legitimate complaints.
When people complained about Eric Stonestreet’s portrayal of Cam on Modern Family and also how the two never showed affection, what happened? Out of the blue he won an Emmy. AND the response from Hollywood was “LGBT people should be happy they even have a storyline”.
They current way Hollywood is responding is to have the P.R. companies get friendly reporters to plant articles clutching their pearls that a straight actor might be denied a roll if a gay actor is cast in it. Of course there is NO time they can point to that this has happened, but just the IDEA that an LGBT person might be cast in a roll instead of a straight actor horrifies them and makes them cry about lost jobs.
Similar I suppose to all of the “Lost Jobs” when Hollywood was forced to allow Asian actors to actually portray Asians in films, or when they had to have white people stop portraying all Native American rolls etc…
Selverd
Cameron and Mitchell (whose actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson is gay IRL) showed affection, people’s problem was that in the first season we never saw them kissing. That changed in the second season, and there have been several kisses since then. But even in S1, just having a mainstream television show where two of the main characters were a gay couple raising a child together was a big step forward.
Cam
@Selverd
Thank you for demonstrating exactly my point. Not only did Cam and Mitchell not kiss in the first season, they basically showed no affection. The first response from the Modern Family folks over complaints of Cam’s over the top portrayal and the couples coldness was to lie and claim that the other couples didn’t show any affection either, then when screenshots of the other couples kissing were released, they changed the story and claimed Mitchell had a fear of intimacy “Convenient since that had never been discussed”. Finally after backlash, they THEN claimed they ALWAYS planned to have them kiss, just not right then.
Your comment also left out the all of the other areas my first post covered.
wiredpup
Yawn…
Selverd
Except Mitch and Cam WERE affectionate in S1, they just didn’t kiss. I wasn’t happy with the no-kiss situation either, but it was still a funny series with positive representation and they started kissing in the following season anyway.
Maybe they just had to get their foot in the door first, and waiting a bit meant middle america would have been less likely to be offended when they did finally kiss because by that point the show would have already won them over.
I also don’t recall seeing a lot of people complaining about Stonestreet’s portrayal, he seemed to be pretty popular (which is why I don’t think his winning an emmy was out of the blue).
Cam
@Selverd
Look, if you’re going to rewrite history than just don’t bother.
If they were so affectionate, then why was their first defense “Mitch has a fear of intimacy and that is why they are’t affectionate”.
And really? You don’t remember people complaining about Stonestreets portrayal?
Queerty itself did an article on certain out gay actors complaining about Stonestreet’s portrayal.
Selverd
I saw an article about Tuc Watkins saying Mitch and Cam were “gay blackface,” but that was in 2015 way after Stonestreet won his Emmy. Your post made it sound like Stonestreet got a lot of backlash in 2010 which is why he won.
>>If they were so affectionate, then why was their first defense “Mitch has a fear of intimacy and that is why they are’t affectionate”.
They were talking about why they hasn’t kissed yet, and how it was the plot of an s2 episode. They weren’t saying Mitch and Cam had never shown any affection before.
The s1 episode “Fears” had Mitch and Cam embracing at the end, for one example of them being affectionate. Other episodes showed them in bed together.
OzJosh
I’m more annoyed by the fact that Stonestreet’s performance is flat-out terrible. I know no gay person like him. His notion of effeminacy/flamboyance is so affected and so fake as to be unlike anything you will see, even in the draggiest gay bar. Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s performance is at least real and nuanced and often funnier. Yet it’s Stonestreet who gets the awards. Frankly, I’m a bit inclined to think awards like that are themselves an expression of homophobia. It’s like there saying “ha! he really nailed that portrayal of the simpering, flaming, annoying queen”. And you’d really have to think that to give Stonestreet an award.
Selverd
Sounds like you have some issues with effeminophobia.
Paulie P
maybe you aren’t that good an actor…. he judges on being black, being gay and flamboyant but think it could be beyond that?….. he was never this over the top, never. but this sudden fame has put him over the top.. he got married in a black tuxedo. not a costume… but the look at me persona he has taken on is a bit much.
i will say he is good on pose. but get over yourself..
Cam
Interesting that the first response is to always doubt the victim?
man5996853
You should take your own advice.
Aunt Sharon
Not knowing Porter’s work that well, except for a brittle and fidgety turn in “American Horror Story”, I would still largely agree. Sure, gay roles should go to gay actors, but not exclusively. Does he think he, or anyone else, could outdo Jeffrey Wright’s Belize?
Mikey E
“So here I sit: I can’t get the gay parts, I can’t get the straight parts, I can’t get nothing. ”
A man spends a decade wearing women’s clothes in public and then is puzzled as to why he can’t get any roles. /smh/
Loki
Exactly. Porter has no range.
Franklin
What does him wearing women’s clothes have to do with his ability to act?
Kangol2
And on cue, you post something effemophobic. Why are you so scared of effeminate men? You might not be as butch as you hope you are.
jcoberkrom
Billy get over yourself.
wiredpup
Yup.
wiredpup
Who? An I be enraged be there are no gay characters that I can identify with too?
Franklin
Not the point, but go off.
mcflyer54
I know plenty of actors, gay and straight, who do not want to be typecast or pigeonholed. Not a single gay male actor I know only wants to play gay identified characters and will argue that their training, experience and professionalism shouldn’t prevent such a narrow restriction as to the roles for which they are considered. But if Mr. Porter is willing to play nothing but gay characters that is his choice. However, to advocate that all other actors should be satisfied with roles solely based on their sexual orientation is unfair to those performers who are fully capable, and willing, to play a variety of roles.
Selverd
“. But if Mr. Porter is willing to play nothing but gay characters that is his choice.”
He said he can’t get straight roles, not that he isn’t willing to do them.
Cam
It’s always interesting how many new accounts show up to defend LGBT people not being cast.
ptb2016
In Australian soo Neighbours the one that discovered the likes of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan they eventually introduced a gay make character who never ever looked at any of the gorgeous men wandering about the set or even coming in as a character. Then he was partnered with a gorgeous actor Bob Morley as his love interest. Very little touching for ages, eventually a kiss, then finally but in the background, a full on snog! The recent gay couple storyline ogre getting together, falling in love, getting married etc has been done to casually as if trying to make it seem an everyday thing. And both actors are straight. Only when a hunk gardener appeared in tiny shorts in one scene did one part of the gay couple see this gorgeous body and almost lose it, hardly able to find his words as the sweat ran down the hunks muscles! But such moments are few and far between, though Aussie soaps like having lesbian storylines, though the girls always end finding themselves a man!
It’s a pity that the non discrimination one finds in the theatre extend into tv and movies otherwise we’d have been denied thousands of great performances, the best Hamlet, Richard III, Anthony, Romeo, Richard II, Achilles, Othello, Amadeus, Pentheus, Orestes, Tartuffe, Louis XIV, and many many modern plays have all been out gay actors. And playing to packed theatres and rave reviews, and nobody stopping for an instant topo wonder who they’re sleeping with!
OzJosh
Neighbours is a disgrace. For 25 years they avoided having a gay character. Wouldn’t go near it. Now they’re patting themselves on the back for having a gay wedding, as though this finally makes them socially relevant. But they only addressed the issue AFTER the national vote on marriage equality and AFTER the law had been changed. Where were they when it was a hotly debated issue, when hate was raining down on the gay community from the religious nutters, and when they might have actually done some good by putting human faces to the issue and influencing the debate? They were too gutless to do anything when it really mattered. Forty-five years ago a little Australian TV drama called Number 96 dared to have the first regular gay character ever on television anywhere in the world. And they maintained that character with dignity and daring for the entire five-year run of the show. That was gutsy. Neighbours is beyond lame.
frenchjr25
He’s absolutely wrong on this. If we follow his logic then only straight actors would be allowed to play straight roles. Acting is about going outside of yourself and doing something different. A talented actor should be able to play a variety of roles.
At the same time he is assuming that all these actors are straight. How does he know? There are a ton of actors who are queer that haven’t come out publicly, for a variety of reasons.
Maybe he doesn’t get cast because he is not easy to work with. And maybe he’s not nearly as talented as he thinks he is.
Brian
Did you actually read the article? Nowhere does he say, or even imply that only gay actors should play gay roles. Nor does he say anything about the other actors on stage with him, he said “Because straight men playing gay, everyone wants to give them an award. ‘Thank you for gracing us with your straight presence.’ So that gets tiresome.”
man5996853
What an incredibly obtuse mischaracterization of his statements.
geb1966
Or maybe he’s right.DID you even read the whole article or just skim it for the parts you could pick apart?
His point is that actors who CLEARLY identify as straight get praised & awarded for doing gay roles, while gay actors are rarely even offered the opportunity to play straight roles, mush less get recognition for it. This is factually accurate.
MISTERJETT
what does it matter? the roles should go to whoever is best to portray it. it’s called acting.
Franklin
They should, but the problem is Hollywood won’t even consider gay actors for gay roles, and then they turn around and make it seem like it’s this groundbreaking thing for a straight actor to play a gay role and give them an award for it. That’s a problem.
geb1966
That’s HIS point, dear!! He’s not even being considered, regardless of his PROVEN track record on the stage. Broadway is not going to cast crappy actors over and over.
dean089
Wait, what? Marlon Brando and Angelina Jolie “out” where? Shopping? Golfing?
Kevin Spacey and Joel Grey weren’t ‘out’ when they won their Academy Awards. Saying “Oh, by the way, I’m gay” years, even decades, later is too little too late.
Brian
Angelina claimed to be bisexual ages ago. I don’t think she’s ever had a public relationship with a woman though.
Marlon Brando admitted to having sex with men in the 1970s, probably at the height of bisexual chic. Not sure if he ever claimed to actually be bisexual though.
jasentylar
There is so much homophobia within the community….it’s evident in these comments. Sad.
Bytemenow
You are so right jasentylar. It’s enraging to see so many gay people that seem to do nothing but tear one another to shreds. I guess it makes them feel better about themselves. They should try therapy.
Max
acting is like being a model. sometimes your look/style/ability/characteristic isn’t what they’re looking for.
if Porter continues his bitch fest, he’ll scare away the broader pool of directors. keep it professional and just do good acting.