20 of our favore straight actors as gay characters | CNN

Contents:

• 20 GREAT ROL: OUR FAVORE STRAIGHT ACTORS WHO HAVE PLAYED GAY CHARACTERS
• 15 GAY ACTORS WHO PLAYED STRAIGHT ROL TO PERFECTN
• GAY ACTORS, STRAIGHT ROL: A LSON IN MAKG SURE YOUR ARGUMENT IS LOGIL
• 8 GAY ACTORS WHO PLAYED STRAIGHT CHARACTERS
• STANLEY TUCCI IS PRETTY FE WH STRAIGHT ACTORS PLAYG GAY CHARACTERS
• STRAIGHT ACTORS WHO HAVE PLAYED GAY CHARACTERS
• WHEN HOLLYWOOD STUDS MARRIED OFF GAY STARS TO KEEP THEIR SEXUALY A SECRET
• 15 STRAIGHT ACTORS WHO PLAYED GAY ROL TO PERFECTN
• SHOULD STRAIGHT ACTORS STILL PLAY GAY CHARACTERS? 'IT'S PLITED'

20 GREAT ROL: OUR FAVORE STRAIGHT ACTORS WHO HAVE PLAYED GAY CHARACTERS

"Roger Ebert wrote: "He plays the role not as a man pretendg to be a woman, and not as a woman trapped a man's body, and not as a parody of a woman, and not as a gay man, but as a drag queen, perd: Lola, a tall, athletic performer thigh-high red boots who l the stage of a drag club as if she were born there, and is a pretty good sger, too. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, both straight, were both Osr-nomated for their performanc (Ledger lead, Gyllenhaal supportg) this film about two men fallg love and ntug their affair for film sred 87% on Rotten Tomato, wh the se's cril nsens readg: "A betifully epic Wtern, 'Brokeback Mounta''s gay love story is imbued wh heartbreakg universaly, helped by the movg performanc of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Some of the actors even went so far as to play straight characters who treated gay people badly and managed to do so nvcgly that the dience believed a ltle themselv. " However, he went on to say 2014 that although he's proud of beg gay and his reer has never suffered for , he's a b wary of discsg his personal life wh the media.

Most famoly, he plays Spock the current Star Trek movie anchise, and although Spock has a lot of homoerotic subtext wh Kirk, he's datg Uhura the movi.

15 GAY ACTORS WHO PLAYED STRAIGHT ROL TO PERFECTN

Thredson wasn't jt a horrifyg villa, he was a doctor workg to get lbian ma character Lana Wters (played by Sarah Plson, a gay woman) to be straight aga. Quto me out 2011, sayg "that livg a gay life whout publicly acknowledgg is simply not enough to make any signifint ntributn to the immense work that li ahead on the road to plete equaly.

Harris nfirmed his sexual orientatn 2006, sayg: "I am happy to dispel any mors or misnceptns and am que proud to say that I am a very ntent gay man livg my life to the fullt and feel most fortunate to be workg wh wonrful people the bs I love.

GAY ACTORS, STRAIGHT ROL: A LSON IN MAKG SURE YOUR ARGUMENT IS LOGIL

Between David Hy Pierce and John Mahoney, Frasier might actually have one of the gayt ma sts of a mastream show that's also starrg a rd-rryg Republin. We have some of the most pellg liv, so 's not surprisg that everyone wants to tell our s gotten better recent years, throughout history, most great gay rol have gone to straight actors, wh over a dozen wng Osrs for playg LGBTQ+ characters.

Sometim n be tirome seeg straight actors get all of this praise for brgg gay people to life, but other tim s tly are our ten favore performanc by straight actors playg queer characters movi and TV om 2022. While she spends most of her time at work yellg at men who flirt wh the sk clerk she's cshg on and ly tellg guts that she n't help them, Victoria is secretly holdg a ep secret: she's gay, but has never been wh a woman.

8 GAY ACTORS WHO PLAYED STRAIGHT CHARACTERS

Look, I'm not here to argue the motiv of Ram Satooh, who recently wrote the lightng-rod lumn that started wh a crique of Sean Hay Promis, Promis and somehow arrived at the ia that never really works when out gay actors try to play straight romantic leads.

It would also be a feat to expla why this would only work one directn -- why dienc wh prenceptns about sexualy would be more likely to enjoy and accept Tom Hanks or Sean Penn as a gay person than they would be to accept Hypothetilly Gay Gee Clooney Guy as a straight person?

I am assumg, however, that a lot of men who have played oppose Krist Chenoweth -- the gay on and the straight on both -- have not actually been love wh her, and have not need to be. He has spent the last 10 years beg Sean Hay, and Sean Hay was on televisn for many years playg a very particular, very broadly drawn gay character, and not dog a whole lot of other high-profile work. In other words: To turn Sean Hay to a nvcg tt of a possible HGGCG, you have to image that addn to beg known to be Hypothetilly Gay when not on the clock, Gee Clooney Guy spent eight seasons on work televisn playg a very famo gay character.

STANLEY TUCCI IS PRETTY FE WH STRAIGHT ACTORS PLAYG GAY CHARACTERS

If an actor projects beefy bravado on-screen, but you n't al wh him takg a bubble bath bee your bra is settg off some kd of WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP gay-person alarm that is specifilly stimulated by bubbl -- and if the only reason that alarm go off is that you're wag for to go off bee you already know he's gay -- then I would venture to say that is not Rock Hudson's problem.

And if you uld watch the same scene five mut before you found out Rock Hudson was Not Hypothetilly Gay and see entirely different subtext -- a subversn of and a tweak of machismo through the takg of a bubble bath, for stance, rather than GAY GAY GAY -- then there's absolutely no reason you n't ntue to see that way five mut later. Setooh's efforts to disunt existg gay actors who currently play straight characters -- actors whose succs would seem to knock every possible leg out om this already rickety hypothis -- clu wrg off Neil Patrick Harris, bee the womanizer he plays on How I Met Your Mother is a riture. I watch this show, I watch Jonathan Groff on this show, and I had no ia he was gay, and I thought he was sexy, and I still thk he's sexy, so perhaps he only "seems more like your average theater queen" if you're lookg for .

Do this suggt that would make the character seem ls distractgly maybe-gay if the character were sgg "Like A Virg" and wrhg around on a bed, but Groff hadn't e out?

STRAIGHT ACTORS WHO HAVE PLAYED GAY CHARACTERS

"Acrdg to GLAAD's annual Stud Rponsibily Inx, 22 of 118 films released by major movie studs 2019 clud characters who were lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and/or queer (18. Anrson not that a movie like "Love, Simon" avoid cricism for stg a straight lead actor bee was the first film by a major Hollywood stud to foc on a gay teenage romance.

"All of those issu are important to me at once, and I thk that we n advote for all of them at once bee ultimately we want our media to be an accurate reflectn of the world which we live, " they Billy Eichner, who is gay, told Deadle earlier this year that Hollywood was "so hypocril"  how treats LGBTQ actors, that many attend fundraisers for the muny but fail to tell LGBTQ stori wh LGBTQ actors. I thk we need to stop unrvalug that, the feelg that if a gay person plays a gay person ’s not actg but if a straight person plays a gay person, we give them an Osr. "I don't thk that a cis person uld ever tly unrstand the trans experience, or what means to be trans and the amount of opprsn that we go through on a daily basis, " Cassata qutn of thenticy appli to lbian, gay and bisexual people, too, though the letters of LGBTQ are more accepted inti, Cassata says.

In the se of gay actor Wentworth Miller of "Prison Break, " he said  an Instagram post earlier this month that he isn't terted playg straight characters anymore and has ntued to discs the need for better reprentatn.

WHEN HOLLYWOOD STUDS MARRIED OFF GAY STARS TO KEEP THEIR SEXUALY A SECRET

While we fely prefer that most gay rol go to gay actors, and we love the thenticy they brg to the rol and the projects they’re , we n’t help but have a special soft spot for a few straight stars, like Brendan Fraser, are great people and great at playg gay, but aren't really known for . We want a future where every talented queer actor n get whatever rol they want and where queer actors fally w awards for playg queer rol, but until then, the ten actors show that not every straight actor should be banned om playg gay on screen.

15 STRAIGHT ACTORS WHO PLAYED GAY ROL TO PERFECTN

But we really loved her as a bisexual actn star Atomic Blon, and as a gay in rol like Fura Mad Max: Fury Road, and Andy The Old Guard. He’s also played gay oppose Stanley Tucci Supernova, and plays Harry Bright, one of Sophia’s potential fathers (and a gay man) the Mamma Mia!

We loved when McGregor played a gay mate Phillip Morris the dark edy I Love You Phillip Morris, and aga when he played real-life legendary fashn signer Halston the Netflix miseri Halston. Early her reer, Lyonne played the inic role of the cheerlear the semal lbian movie But I’m a Cheerlear, and sce then, she’s never stopped playg gay. From smaller movi like The Daytrippers and Ltle Chaos, to his inic gay rol The Devil Wears Prada, Burlque, and Supernova (oppose fellow straight-actor-we-love Col Firth), he always do the gay muny right.

Chalamet hasn’t had as many gay rol as the rt of the people on this list (he’s only 27, after all), but he ma que the imprsn on the queer muny wh his touchg and realistic performance as a lovtck teen Lu Guadagno’s classic g-of-age romance Call Me by Your Name. But, given the ntroversy over straight actors portrayg gay characters, this list is also applible to straight actors who are gay to play straight rol. She has been gay on Amerin Horror Story: Asylum and Carol however, one of the rol she has was Harriet Hay Stud 60 on The Sunset Strip, a character based on Amerin actrs and sger Krist Chenoweth.

SHOULD STRAIGHT ACTORS STILL PLAY GAY CHARACTERS? 'IT'S PLITED'

Sce Twilight was her first film, she has been playg gay characters the rom- Happyt Season as well as Victorian thriller Lizzie wh Chloe Sevigny. Although he played an unintified character and shared private scen of his screen girliend however, the actor is sexually gay on the real world.