Gay actors playing straight roles
1. Margaret Qualley
Starlet Margaret Qualley seems to be everywhere these days. She portrays the lesbian character Jamie in the 2024 feature “Drive-Away Dolls.” With her southern twang, Jamie plays it fast and loose, joking her way through a road trip with twists and turns and lots of talented characters to keep things interesting.
2. Nelsan Ellis
Dipping back to 2008, Nelsan Ellis saturated our screens with the iconic queer character Lafayette Reynolds on “True Blood.” Lafayette is fierce and fabulous, more than top the cook at Bellefleur’s Bar & Grill. He’s a medium, a hustler, and an all-around fierce, loyal, and loveable friend.
3. Sophie Okonedo
If you’re into high fantasy, “The Wheel of Time” is a must-watch. The forbidden sapphic relationship between Siuan Sanche (Sophie Okonedo) and Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) has been quite the crowd-pleaser. The series is packed of colorful beings and plenty of action and adventure.
Michaela Coel has created and starred in some groundbreaking media. She chose the role of Aneka in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever“ because Aneka was queer.
“People say,
This list of homosexual actors who act straight characters is loosely ranked by fame and popularity. One of the great things about being an performer or public figure is you can play characters that are different from yourself. Several lgbtq+ actors are legendary for playing direct characters in movie and on television. One gay performer is best established for playing a womanizing lawyer on a sitcom.
Who is the most celebrated gay actor who has played linear characters? Rosie O'Donnell tops our list. The A League of Their Own luminary publicly came out in 2002. She has since been a fierce advocate for gay rights, same-sex marriage, and gay adoption rights. She has played several straight characters including Betty Rubble in The Flintstones. Portia de Rossi married talk demonstrate host Ellen DeGeneres in 2008. She has played several straight characters including Lindsay Bluth Funke on Arrested Development.
Neil Patrick Harris plays the womanizing Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother. Harris came out in 2006, saying, "I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay gentleman living my animation to the fullest and feel most fortunate to be working with superb peo
Today’s social media controversy comes courtesy of former Doctor Who show-runner Russell T Davies who has gone on record in an interview that he believes homosexual roles should generally be played by gay actors.
As you might expect, the response to this argument has been both immediate and strong. Some people have argued that it’s against the whole principle of acting to say that people should only play people like themselves (while obviously skipping over the obvious complexities of — or analogies to — a light actor playing a black personality or a man playing a woman’s experience). Others have argued that if straight actors can’t play gay, then gay actors should not be able to play straight characters either.
In the middle of a lot of this is the alike sort of generalized tedious sentiment we often get in these kinds of discussions – stuff that goes along the lines of, “it’s all political precision gone mad” – groans about the “woke brigade”.
Now, these positions are infuriating, frustrating and incorrect, but for many people why they are wrong is far from obvious. Superficially, they seems simple, commonsensical, s