Straight actors playing gay characters

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Penn's performance as Milk was hailed by Variety, with Todd McCarthy calling his performance "winning."

McCarthy wrote: "The show belongs squarely to Penn. Do I sound like I'm preaching? I was like, it's gonna be a lot easier in a year when I'm on Zoom doing junkets if we can speak authentically about our gay experience.

Hugo Weaving, who played Anthony "Tick" Belrose/Mitzi Del Bra, a gay man and drag queen in "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," told Stellar, "The nonsense surrounding [the casting of three straight men as two gay men and a trans woman] was extraordinary. Somebody is going to be offended by me saying that."

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At the 2018 Rome Film Festival, Cate Blanchett — who played lesbian leads in "Tár" and "Carol" — said, "I will fight to the death for the right to suspend disbelief and play roles beyond my experience."

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She continued, "I think reality television and all that that entails had an extraordinary impact, a profound impact on the way we view the creation of character.

But now we know everything."

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However, he added, "On the other hand, I think there needs to be greater equality. On Clorox's Young Changemaker Live Panel, Darren Criss — who rose to fame as Blaine Anderson, who's gay, on "Glee," then later won a Golden Globe, SAG Award, Critics Choice Award, and Emmy for playing Andrew Cunanan, a gay man, in "The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story" — said, "There are certain [queer] roles that I'll see that are just wonderful, but I want to make sure I won't be another straight boy taking a gay man's role."

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Continuing, he said that playing queer characters had "been a real joy," but he no longer felt comfortable taking those parts.

He said, "The reason I say that is because getting to play those characters is inherently a wonderful dramatic experience.

I'd like everyone to just be treated equally, to see people look at you and accept you for who you are as a human being and your spirit."

18. But if they are, and you're becoming an ally and a part of it and there's something that drove you there in the first place that makes you uniquely endowed with a perspective that might be worthwhile, there's nothing wrong with learning about each other.

I'll just do that.

straight actors playing gay characters

As a study in the way beautiful surfaces can simultaneously conceal and expose deeper meanings, the actress's performance represents an all-too-fitting centerpiece for this magnificently realized movie."

Eddie Redmayne played trans woman Lilie Elbe in 2015's 'The Danish Girl.'

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Also, the logical extension of the argument is that if you have to be gay to play a gay person, then do you have to be a murderer to play a murderer?"

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He also said, "There's an insanity about the casting — the whole idea of acting is to understand the 'other.' Actors perform a role, which is to illuminate the other — not to illuminate themselves."

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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 desire, 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 man Brandon Teena in "Boys Don't Cry." Her performance here was called "the performance of her career" by film critic James Berardinelli.

Once upon a time, gay and lesbian actors, specifically, had to stay in the closet, and there were next-to-no gay parts on screen.

The idea that openly gay actors can play het characters is a relatively new phenomenon. The way he led me through it as a director, the way he led me through it as a friend, the way he led me through it as a gay man.

When I played Blanche Dubois on the stage, I’m not an alcoholic. I so acknowledge that I've just gotten to work. Firth does typically-British emotional restraint so well, and The Austin Chronicle wrote that he "dons the role of George like a fine bespoke suit."

"'A Single Man is,' ultimately, Firth's tour de force," the review continues. You're supposed to play different people.

I feel like that's a very interesting, slightly problematic, sort of assumption to make."

4. Julianne Moore, who played Jules Allgood, a lesbian in "The Kids Are All Right," told Variety, "I've thought about that [criticism] a lot. While the film itself received average reviews, Ejiofor's performance was hailed as "striking."

Roger Ebert wrote: "He plays the role not as a man pretending to be a woman, and not as a woman trapped in a man's body, and not as a parody of a woman, and not as a gay man, but as a drag queen, period: Lola, a tall, athletic performer in thigh-high red boots who rules the stage of a drag club as if she were born there, and is a pretty good singer, too."

Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal played Ennis and Jack in 'Brokeback Mountain' in 2005.

Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, both straight, were both Oscar-nominated for their performances (Ledger in lead, Gyllenhaal in supporting) in this film about two men falling in love and continuing their affair for years.

The film scored 87% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the site's critical consensus reading: "A beautifully epic Western, 'Brokeback Mountain''s gay love story is imbued with heartbreaking universality, helped by the moving performances of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal."

Sean Penn played gay activist Harvey Milk in 2008's 'Milk.'

Harvey Milk is one of the most important gay activists in history, and straight actor Sean Penn won an Oscar for playing him.