Straight actors playing gay characters
Let’s Settle This: Can Vertical Actors Play Gay Roles?
No way. Well, maybe? Sometimes. Okay — yes. Of course! We’re all human beings at the conclusion of the day … and sexuality is on a spectrum, right? Acting is acting!
This whirlwind of contradictory answers flutters through my uncharacteristically conflicted head every time I seek to answer this scrutinize. It’s a debate we’ve seen time and age again, most recently when many high-profile names leapt to the defence of Jack Whitehall being cast as Disney’s first openly gay character. So I’m by no means the first person to converse on this seemingly unsolvable debate, but with the recent release of Supernova — Hollywood’s latest male lover film starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci — I’m throwing my coin into the hat for good measure.
Gaslighting queer folk
Netflix’s Disclosure (well worth a watch) beautifully highlighted the importance of casting gender non-conforming actors in trans roles — or should I say, the harm of casting cisgender actors in trans roles. But the casting of gay roles remains more of a grey area than you realise. As an player and a gay guy, I find myself caught in the middle of this debate, straddling both sides of
14 Straight Actors Who Won Oscars For Playing Gay Roles
While we love seeing LGBTQ+ characters on massive screen, we’d be remiss if we didn’t bring up that a lot of the most awarded—queer roles have gone to non-queer actors….
Peter Finch was the first to be nominated by the Academy for his role as a gay doctor in the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday and the groundbreaking nomination paved the way for dozens of straight thespians to get nods for taking on gay, lesbian and trans roles. Before the 94th annual Academy Awards get place on Sunday Protest 27, here’s a see back at 14 standout performances (from straight actors) of LGBTQ+ characters that won Oscar gold.
William Wound for Kiss of the Spider Woman
(Released: 1985)
William Offend was the first thespian to win an Oscar for playing a homosexual character on the large screen. Hurt portrayed Luis Molina, an incarcerated queer man, in the 1985 film Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Tom Hanks for Philadelphia
(Released: 1993)
Tom Hanks took home the Best Thespian for his role in Philadelphia. The film was one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to explicitly address HIV/AIDS and homophobia.
Hilary
Gorbles said: I really don't at all. Click to expand... It’s a Hollywood cliche that, for a straight male actor, playing a gay role is a shortcut to an Oscar (alongside starring in a film about the Holocaust, disability or mental illness). There have been many prominent examples (Tom Hanks won Best Performer for playing a lgbtq+ man with AIDS in Philadelphia (1993), Sean Penn for starring in a biopic about gay civil rights activists in Milk), but if such a strategy exists, it’s no longer as viable today: it certainly didn’t out for Bradley Cooper this year, whose performance as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro was snubbed, or Paul Mescal, who wasn’t even nominated for All of Us Strangers. But there is still a residual feeling of prestige for the straight actor playing same-sex attracted, and while they are far less likely to be described as “brave” for doing so, it still seems to be a mark of seriousness, a way of proving your chops. In evidence, now that it tends to be associated with auteur-led, independent cinema rather than middle-brow Oscar bait, it’s more clouty than ever before. In recent months, a flurry of new productions have been announced in which linear actors – or least, actors
.Actors playing characters with which they do not participate characteristics
They are all things the actor was born with, or had no initial control over.
That said, the way I see it, comparing something like someone being LGBTQ to someone's eye colour is a relatively thin comparison. The point why this topic is even a thing is because of the marginalisation innate in the industry in question. Not because of their eye colour, or like others tried to claim, because they're British or not.
Let's depart to a "non-shallow" place, shall we? I'm diabetic, and that means there are certain things that are now part of my life that weren't, two years ago (it's been nearly two years to the day that I nearly died, was diagnosed, hospitalized, treated, and taught what to await in the future, and how to manage situations like yesterday, when I had a bad hypoglycemic event - I contain to know how to handle these things myself, because some hospitals are death traps nowadays).
Should I scream and rant at film studios to only cast diabetic actors in roles where the character is diab
Do queer roles really depend on to be played by queer actors?