'Downton Abbey' Actor Says Gay Role Hurt His Career — But Is He Right?

Contents:

• DOWNTON ABBEY'S THOMAS BARROW AND THE FUTURE OF THE GAY PAST
• THE ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE’S GAY STORYLE ALMOST HAD A DARKER ENDG
• DOWNTON ABBEY ACTOR SAYS GAY ROLE HURT HIS CAREER — BUT IS HE RIGHT?
• ROB JAM-COLLIER SAYS HIS CHARACTER’S GAY ROMANCE IN ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE IS ‘LOVELY’
• ‘DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA’: JULIAN FELLOW MOLED THOMAS BARROW AND GUY DEXTER AFTER SEVERAL REAL-LIFE GAY CELEBRI
• NEW DOWNTON ABBEY MOVIE SH A LIGHT ON THE ‘HORRIFIC’ TREATMENT OF GAY MEN 1920S ENGLAND
• THE DIRECTOR OF “DOWNTON ABBEY” OPENED UP ABOUT THE MOVIE’S TOUCHG GAY STORYLE

DOWNTON ABBEY'S THOMAS BARROW AND THE FUTURE OF THE GAY PAST

Thomas Barrow (Rob Jam-Collier)—former footman, would-be blackmailer, and early morn homosexual everyman—is now head butler on staff, givg him ample opportuny to teract wh the visg stars, and particular, wh the bonair Guy Dexter (Domic Wt).

Is Thomas an accurate unveilg of historil homosexualy, hidn but fully formed, jt wag for to notice his existence? Hello to the future of the gay past.

In the film, dienc will see Barrow the ntext of a wir gay world for the first time: visg a secret gay bar, dodgg police harassment, and possibly even fdg love. "I thk one of the thgs that Downton Abbey don’t get right is that actually a great al more of those young men who were service were homosexual. Barrow is stantly regnizable as a morn gay man, even if he never que those words.

THE ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE’S GAY STORYLE ALMOST HAD A DARKER ENDG

Gooch//Getty ImagOn the one hand, this feels like an elaboratn of that famo gay liberatn slogan “we are everywhere, ” expandg to be “we were everywhere” also. On the other hand, seems to remove sexualy om the doma of history entirely, suggtg that the experience of beg gay has always been the same, no matter the place or perd.

While everyone else the show be, Barrow already qutn for queer Downton Abbey fans, then, is this: Is Thomas an accurate unveilg of historil homosexualy, hidn but fully formed, jt wag for to notice his existence? Or is he a backward projectn of our current ia of what means to be gay, an anachronism disguised as a revelatn?

Like Thomas Barrow, Alec Scudr seems preternaturally gay, fully aware of his sexual sir, that they are exclively for men, and that they mark him, irrevobly, as a different sort of person.

DOWNTON ABBEY ACTOR SAYS GAY ROLE HURT HIS CAREER — BUT IS HE RIGHT?

In the post-Edwardian perd, upper class men were more likely to already unrstand the world terms of heterosexuals and homosexuals, wh a bright and absolute le dividg the two. But whereas Scudr and Barrow seemed to thk of themselv as gay, el-Adl experienced his sire for men differently. Increasgly, sexologists, policians, and wrers began to promulgate the ia that the behavrs were signifiers of homosexualy, to be surveilled and curtailed.

Compton Mackenzie, pictured send om the left the ont row, wrote several works about gay men. BettmannA workg class man like Thomas Barrow, livg the untrysi, was unlikely to have accs to this kd of rmatn about gay inty.

As s passed, the neat fictn of bary sexualy beme broadly acknowledged “tth, ” leavg ls and ls space for middle-dwellg, workg-class men like Buckgham and an earlier and earlier age, people would be tght— streets as much as schools—that homosexuals existed, that they were unlike other men, and that any apparent “middle ground” was actually a slippery slope head straight to hell.

ROB JAM-COLLIER SAYS HIS CHARACTER’S GAY ROMANCE IN ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ MOVIE IS ‘LOVELY’

Barrow might have been an implsible outlier at the begng of the show 1912, but by the 1950s, workg class men who intified as homosexual were throngg the streets of London. Thomas Barrow, Downton Abbey‘s valet-turned-butler, whose dark journey durg the seri saw him take some wrenchg steps to try and “cure” himself of homosexualy, received a much more hopeful treatment the new feature film of the same name.

The film, which troduc Barrow to a world he has never seen before, a clanste unrground social scene where gay men n openly nnect, where he's led by Richard Ellis (Max Brown), part of the royal entourage that has e to vis Downton. Engler also spoke about the gay storyle wh Indiewire, about some of the choic that were ma when pictg the 1920s gay scene, particular the gay ‘speakeasy' that gets raid.

‘DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA’: JULIAN FELLOW MOLED THOMAS BARROW AND GUY DEXTER AFTER SEVERAL REAL-LIFE GAY CELEBRI

Said Engler: “In pictg that world, that gatherg that he go to, we had to fd a way to tell that didn't feel anachronistic even though there's almost no rearch that one uld actually do about a place like that bee there was no gay bars York 1927. There's people of lor gay bars, and there's guys who go to the gym and are mcle-y gay bars. Gay butler Thomas Barrow fally gets his happy endg Downton Abbey: A New Era.

This time, however, we’re treated to somethg new: a gay happy endg. But on a trip to York, Barrow is ved to an unrground gay bar, where he is arrted after the club raid by police.

NEW DOWNTON ABBEY MOVIE SH A LIGHT ON THE ‘HORRIFIC’ TREATMENT OF GAY MEN 1920S ENGLAND

At a time when gay sex was punishable by life imprisonment, and gross cency by at least two years behd bars, Barrow was a prer suatn. Among those volved the productn is Guy Dexter, a closeted gay movie star played by Domic Guy drops hts about his sexual inty, mostly through exchang wh gay butler Thomas Barrow (Robert Jam-Collier, both pictured above), the portrayal ntu the tradn of queer cln projects om Downton creator and wrer Julian Fellow, wh exampl such as Barrow, The Gild Age's Osr van Rhijn, and several characters Gosford Park.

"I got que terted, really, over the past years, the prediment of beg gay before the morn age, " says Fellow, a straight ally.

Some viewers didn't believe such thgs really happened, and Fellow got letters to which he rpond that beg gay was not only illegal the 1920s, was illegal his own youth the 1960s.

THE DIRECTOR OF “DOWNTON ABBEY” OPENED UP ABOUT THE MOVIE’S TOUCHG GAY STORYLE

In his own life, one of his brothers had a godfather who was a gay earl. Fellow's pictns of gay people aren't one-dimensnal, and the characters are hardly sats; some uld even be ced as exampl of the "schemg gay" trope, like Osr The Gild Age or Barrow the early seasons of Gild Age's Osr van Rhijn (Blake Rson); Photo Alison Cohen Rosa"What I that at the begng of Downton, [Barrow] would be seen as v and untstworthy and all of those kd of thgs, but as you got to know him and as you got to know the prediment he was , you started to unrstand that was very difficult for him to tst people and that was very difficult for him to relax and to bee open and iendly, " Fellow says. "You gradually unrstand that for most people, beg gay the 1920s, that ma you were always one step away om disaster.

Robert Jam-Collier is known ternatnally for his role as Thomas Barrow, the v gay unrbutler who brought trigue to the halls of Downton the perd drama, Barrow hid his sexual orientatn for fear would hurt his reer.

And the straight actor who portrays him, Jam-Collier, believ this character's inty may have had nsequenc the morn-day real world as, an terview wh Rad Tim, said his renown for playg a gay role hred his chanc Hollywood. N intify que easily wh the qutsential English gent and English lady, whereas a nrotic, dark, gay character like Thomas is a hard thg to put to the Amerin market. "Bee Thomas Barrow is gay and is, sentially, the bad guy for much of the show, a lot of people wh the dtry n only see you as that.