Ben Whishaw interview

[quote]‘Sometimes, with straight actors ­playing gay parts, I think: I don’t believe you!’

Me too - us gurls know the real thing when we see it.

Luv huh, but she needs a Big Mac or 20.

I always assumed Bond’s Qs were gay.

Punctilious, precise, brainy nerds, who’ve virtually no sexual chemistry with the women around them - regardless of how the women feel -is a Hollywood trope.

The Back to the Future professor, and the original Bond Q (among others), are Wishaw’s Q and Young Melvin grown up.

Does this count as “beringedness”?

Another dreary interview where the trans agenda is shoe-horned into the discussion. So now only someone who conforms to a particular set can play that role. Great news for serial killers.

[quote]Sometimes, with straight actors ­playing gay parts, I think: I don’t believe you!

And this is the same reason gay actors don't get cast in straight roles.

Considering Whishaw is 41 and This Is Going To Hurt starts when Adam Kay is in his mid 20s, it's going to take a big leap of imagination.

I never believe him playing straight parts either. So, so nervy and awkward making eyes at Romola Garai in The Hour and kissing Ruth Negga in Criminal Justice.

Jesus, did he have to pose like that?

R6, gay actors DO get cast in straight roles, all the time. At least, they have until literally the last couple of years. I mean, there wouldn't be a Broadway or a British theatre, would there?

There are just some people who are quite close in one area to a well-known stereotype, and it's very hard to sell them as the opposite. Just as you have trouble believing Whishaw as a predatory straight man (hell, I have trouble believing Kelsey Grammer), you wouldn't believe the young Rita Hayworth or Madonna as a sad frump or Arnold Schwarzenegger as the inventor of MRNA vaccines either. Actually, actors trying to play highly intelligent is probably the biggest area where unintended hilarity ensues. Marilyn tried hard to sell her offscreen persona as an intellectual, to universal raspberries (or, as the DL quipped: "E=MC squared - or the letter between D and F, I forget.") 20-something Nicole Kidman's turn as a nuclear physicist was another howler.

But plenty of gay and bi actors of both sexes aren't close to the gender stereotype and have happily played straight onscreen or on stage for entire successful careers. I mean, even now that we know Brando was rampantly bi (and could well have been predominantly gay if born today), is anybody here unpersuaded by Stanley Kowalski? Does anyone have Cary Grant movies spoiled by the perception that he's gay? I think eventually, when most gay people are out, audiences will still struggle to accept actors who can't act straight well enough (especially under the close scrutiny of film), but be perfectly happy with those who can. And vice versa for gay roles. Which is fair criticism in that it's based on acting skills, after all.

Whether these stereotypes should exist in the first place is a different debate.

Of course, there is a segment of the audience which believes that we should suspend all disbelief about everything every time we walk into a theatre or cinema, thus basically obviating criticism entirely. I can't help them.

[quote][R6], gay actors DO get cast in straight roles, all the time. At least, they have until literally the last couple of years. I mean, there wouldn't be a Broadway or a British theatre, would there?

Who are the gay actors who regularly get cast in straight roles? Roles where the character is clearly heterosexual and has romantic or sex storylines?

Are we just supposed to guess which interview this is about?

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

R12 I don’t understand the statement for the article?

I love Ben in all his roles. He has a sort of fragility about him, very endearing. ‘London Spy’ is my fav show of his.

[quote]Are we just supposed to guess which interview this is about?

It's the Guardian interview yesterday. For some reason the OP is now greyed out so the link to the interview doesn't show.

[quote] Who are the gay actors who regularly get cast in straight roles? Roles where the character is clearly heterosexual and has romantic or sex storylines?

The Lukes (McFarlane and Evans) are the only ones who come to mind readily for me.

R10 Russell Tovey and Connor Jessup mostly play straight characters.

Ben Whishaw seemed real straight going after that ginger woman in The Danish Girl!

[quote][R10] Russell Tovey and Connor Jessup mostly play straight characters.

Which overtly heterosexual characters has Tovey played? Apart from Him and Her?

He's been gay in Years And Years, Looking, The Pass, Quantico, The Good Liar.

Didn’t Jonathan Groff go back to fucking Lea Michelle for that one night revival of Spring Awakening? And Matt Boomer had a wife on the Punisher show and fucked Lady GaGa in AHS, though I guess if gay men were to fuck only one woman it would be Lady GaGa.

R19 I suppose you're right, but the recent stuff I've seen him in - The Sister and Flesh and Blood he's played straight characters.

Ben hanging out with Russell Tovey, his boyfriend and some other people some weeks ago:

The black guy on Tovey's left is fellow homosexual Kadiff Kirwan, who appears with Whishaw in This Is Going To Hurt.

And the white guy next to Whishaw is fellow homosexual Dino Fetscher, who played Tovey's partner in Years And Years and was "discovered" by Russell T Davies after being a former Mr Gay UK.

Thanks R5. I would love to frame that comment.

[quote]is fellow homosexual Dino Fetscher

haawt!

[quote] Who are the gay actors who regularly get cast in straight roles? Roles where the character is clearly heterosexual and has romantic or sex storylines?

[quote] Didn’t Jonathan Groff go back to fucking Lea Michelle for that one night revival of Spring Awakening?

Jonathan Groff was having graphic sex with his girlfriend in season one of Mindhunter, but I love that the only woman gays can imagine him fucking is Lea Michele.

[quote]Jonathan Groff was having graphic sex with his girlfriend in season one of Mindhunter, but I love that the only woman gays can imagine him fucking is Lea Michele.

I did think about Jonathan Groff's performance in Mindhunter, which if I recall rightly many people on here felt was inauthentic because he is so obviously gay. I'd actually forgotten he played a heterosexual in Glee.

I was referencing Spring Awakening, where eight times a week he dropped trou, showed a nice sculpted ass off and thrusted deeply into her after having beat her with a switch.

R10, I specifically said "at least until the last couple of years", and then I gave numerous historical examples, to which I'd add Tracy and Hepburn, while I think of it. Can you deny that Western theatre was built on gay guys playing straight?

However, I'm totally sure there are plenty of gay and bi guys playing straight right now, even in movies and TV, and we just don't know what their RL sexuality is. There are miles of DL threads headed "Is [this leading actor] gay/bi or not? What do you think, DLers?" To name just some of the people who have been "[this leading actor]" in such threads: Clooney, Paul Newman, Damon and Affleck, Cruise, Keanu, Liam Neeson, Daniel Radcliffe, anyone who's ever dated Taylor Swift...and so on.

P.S. There's such a thread today about Bradley Cooper.

Marriage over.

Brandon Flynn will be in his DMs.

[Quote] Can you deny that Western theatre was built on gay guys playing straight?

In this context gay actor means OUT as gay.

Indeed r23 and the dark haired little fellow beside Fetscher is his boyfriend - a London vet.

I didn't recognize Dino Fetscher without a jockstrap.

He's so beautiful, the pics in OP's linked article are quite lovely

R32 I suspect a LOT of people are going to be in his DM's, I know I would if I thought I had half a chance

Ben has grown so much over the past 10 years as an actor. I'm happy for him that it's not a nasty split. Good luck to him finding a kind hearted partner