20 actors who are gay but play straight
Taylor Kitsch and Mark Ruffalo, ‘The Normal Heart’
Taylor Kitsch and Mark Ruffalo participate gay activists trying to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s in HBO's film adaptation of The Normal Heart. Ruffalo's openly gay main character Ned Weeks is based on playwright Larry Kramer while Kitsch plays closeted investment banker Bruce Niles. Ruffalo recalls: “I said to Ryan [Murphy, who directs], ‘Aren’t we at the age when a lgbtq+ actor should be playing this?’ He made it clear to me that attitude wasn’t in the spirit of the film.”
Jared Leto, ‘Dallas Buyers Club’
Jared Leto won the 2014 best supporting actor Oscar for his role as transsexual AIDS patient Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club.
Colin Firth, ‘A Single Man’
Firth plays George Falconer, a suicidal English professor residing in Los Angeles in 1962, whose longtime significant other died in a automobile accident eight months prior. The film, which takes place over the course of a single daytime, follows Falconer as he comes to terms with his grief and finds a renewed will to live. Firth's performance earned him a Golden Glob
17 straight actors who were praised for playing LGBTQ characters
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Hugh Grant played Clive Allen in 1987's 'Maurice.'
Straight actor Hugh Grant took on the role of Clive in James Ivory's "Maurice."
Clive is a gay bloke who tries to suppress his homosexuality in Edwardian-era England. Grant's performance has been labeled as insightful and "intelligent," and in 1987, The New York Times critic Janet Maslin called Grant "so good."
Maslin said that Grant's Clive "embodies all the conservatism and complacency, not to mention all the hidden craving, that Forster saw as most repressive in the English society of his day."
Hilary Swank played trans man Brandon Teena in 'Boys Don't Cry' in 1999.
Hilary Swank, who is cisgender, won an Oscar for playing trans gentleman Brandon Teena in "Boys Don't Cry." Her performance here was called "the performance of her career" by motion picture critic James Berardinelli. The
The Curious Case of Gayface
A few weeks ago, I initiate myself in the strange position of seeing both The Hangover Part III and HBO’s Behind the Candelabra over the course of the same evening. Talk about tonal whiplash: The first film is a study in bro humor that almost hypnotizes with its minimalist development of the twin themes “holy shit, man!” and “aw, crap,” while the latter is a delightfully light-loafered jaunt through Liberace’s kitschy glass closet. But looking back, the couple actually doesn’t sound so odd—each depends heavily on gayness for its appeal and, more specifically, on straight actors playing gay or crypto-gay men to produce it.
Before I’m accused of comparing vertical stripes to rhinestones, let me be clear that these versions of gay-for-pay are not identical. Indeed, very little has been made of the gay role-playing in The Hangover, for reasons I’ll procure to shortly. On the other hand, the Liberace biopic inspired a CNN/BuzzFeed list of the 20 best straight-to-gay drag numbers of all time and, more to the point, a just amount of pushback to the praise that straight actors regularly get for taking on such “brave” and “challenging” roles. The most cogent r
Our roundup of some of the most famous homosexual actors of all period who are proudly flying the flag for our awesome LGBTQ community.
Representation, whether plain as a horrible eyebrow job or as subtle as a carefully coordinated outfit, is leisurely but surely growing for the LGBTQ+ community in Hollywood.
More and more actors are coming out and opening up about their gender, emboldened by the lesser potential for backlash aimed in their direction. While some like to maintain their privacy – not out of fear but out of “God, the paparazzi are getting on my nerves about this!” – others proudly announce engagements, exhibit breakups for all the world to see, and post their vacation snaps featuring their beloved partners – and sometimes kids too!
We still aren't where we need to be when it comes to equal treatment and opportunity for a lot of folks in Show Business but with the list of openly famous lgbtq+ stars growing each year and the support for them following suit, it's only a matter of time before the score evens out.
1. Sir Ian McKellen
We dare you to find someone who doesn’t adore Ian McKellen. Go on… we’ll wait.
Even the for