Love yourself, whatever makes you different, and use it to make you stand out. Mine is my voice and the fact that I'm gay: well, the fact that I'm flamboyantly gay.
For an actor to be working at all is a kind of miracle, because most actors aren't. So it's just silly for a working actor to say, 'Oh, I don't care if anybody knows I'm gay' especially if you're a leading man. Personally, I wouldn't advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out.
When are we going to stop labeling everyone? How many times have I been referred to as 'out gay actor?' Do we say, 'out heterosexual actor' when we refer to Tom Hanks?
I certainly have gay friends, but I don't remember thinking, 'Oh my God, I have this friend, and they're gay, and that's so cool.' I mean, I was very naive until I got to a certain age.
Was it a risky move? Yes, but at that moment, the reason why I came out is I thought it wasn't going to be a big deal. Maybe I was naive. Maybe I thought it was 2014, and people will understand that there's gay NFL players. There's gay athletes everywhere. But I was clearly wrong. It was a huge deal.
I would train with a gay man. As long as he respected me, it's all right. I don't think much of it. The fact that a guy is gay doesn't mean he's going to accost you. He can be gay, have a relationship, live among guys who aren't gay. He can do whatever he wants with his private life.
I'm a gay man, living an out life for a long time, and it's tiring and anger-making to hear people continue to spit out the same old dreary cliches about the fact that gay men are doing something unnatural, and there'll be a price to pay when the Rapture happens.
What we really have to do is stop the adjective before the job title - whether it's 'black actor,' a 'gay actor' or anything actor.
I didn't choose the fact that I was gay, but I did choose whether to live my life as a gay woman-that was the terrifying thing for me. Especially being a gay actress.
What we really have to do is stop the adjective before the job title — whether it's 'black actor,' a 'gay actor' or 'anything actor,' Everybody thinks that equality comes from identifying people, and that's not where equality comes from. Equality comes from treating everybody the same regardless of who they are. I hope the media and the press catches on to that because it's time to move out of 1992.
Here was long period on my life when I was very disappointed by the fact I wasn't gay. Because I grew up going to gay clubs, living in New York and LA, both very gay cities.
America is still a government of the naive, for the naive, and by the naive. He who does not know this, nor relish it, has no inkling of the nature of his country.
I have lived my life very openly and have never hidden the fact that I am gay. Apparently the prerequisite to being a gay public figure is to appear on the cover of a magazine with the caption 'I am gay.' I apologize for not doing so if this is what was expected.
I'm certainly not going to tell other people what they should do with their own personal lives. I think it's certainly easier for a director to be out. The public is not going to see a movie because the director is gay or straight. It's maybe a little harder for an actor or actress because of, you know, the love roles and stuff. But gay people have been impersonating heteros in the movies for years. So, hopefully, that is becoming less of an issue. I think it would have been really great if a gay person had played a gay person. That's brave!
One time I was doing an interview for a gay magazine and halfway through the journalist found out I wasn't gay. He said, 'Sorry, I can't continue the interview.' Because they only had gay public figures in their magazine. I felt so crestfallen. I wanted to tell him: but I play fundraisers for gay marriage! I'd rather my kids were gay than straight!'
Personally, I wouldn't advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out.