Straight actors playing gay characters
14 Straight Actors Who Won Oscars For Playing Diverse Roles
While we love seeing LGBTQ+ characters on great 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 obtain nods for taking on gay, lesbian and gender nonconforming roles. Before the 94th annual Academy Awards grab place on Sunday Pride 27, here’s a stare back at 14 standout performances (from straight actors) of LGBTQ+ characters that won Oscar gold.
William Injure for Kiss of the Spider Woman
(Released: 1985)
William Offend was the first performer to win an Oscar for playing a same-sex attracted character on the large screen. Hurt portrayed Luis Molina, an incarcerated lgbtq+ man, in the 1985 film Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Tom Hanks for Philadelphia
(Released: 1993)
Tom Hanks took home the Best Player 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 Foremost Actor for playing a gay bloke with AIDS in Philadelphia (1993), Sean Penn for starring in a biopic about gay civil rights activists in Milk), but if such a plan exists, it’s no longer as viable today: it certainly didn’t out for Bradley Cooper this year, whose act 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 sense of prestige for the linear actor playing homosexual, 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 fact, now that it tends to be related 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 hold been announced in which straight actors – or least, actors No way. Successfully, maybe? Sometimes. Okay — yes. Of course! We’re all human beings at the end of the day … and sexuality is on a spectrum, right? Acting is acting! This whirlwind of contradictory answers flutters through my uncharacteristically conflicted brain every period I attempt to answer this question. It’s a debate we’ve seen time and time again, most recently when many high-profile names leapt to the defence of Jack Whitehall being cast as Disney’s first openly queer character. So I’m by no means the first person to speak on this seemingly unsolvable debate, but with the recent release of Supernova — Hollywood’s latest gay film starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci — I’m throwing my coin into the hat for good measure. Netflix’s Disclosure (well worth a watch) beautifully highlighted the importance of casting trans 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 man, I find myself caught in the middle of this debate, straddling both sides of
Actors playing characters with which they perform not share characteristics
They are all things the actor was born with, or had no initial govern over.
That said, the way I view it, comparing something like someone existence LGBTQ to someone's eye colour is a relatively insignificant comparison. The indicate why this topic is even a thing is because of the marginalisation inherent in the industry in doubt. Not because of their eye colour, or like others tried to claim, because they're British or not.
Let's go to a "non-shallow" place, shall we? I'm diabetic, and that means there are certain things that are now part of my experience 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 expect in the future, and how to supervise situations like yesterday, when I had a bad hypoglycemic event - I have to recognize how to manage 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 need to be played by queer actors?
Let’s Settle This: Can Straight Actors Play Gay Roles?
Gaslighting queer folk