23 guide 14-20 Oct 2017 film
2003, later said he “wouldn’t
advise a gay leading man-type
actor to come out”. Rupert
Everett said he didn’t work in
Hollywood for a decade after
coming out, and last year Ellen
Page complained that she was
suddenly only being offered gay
roles. “Now I’m gay, I can’t play
a straight person?” she asked.
It was a rhetorical question
but, in 2010, Newsweek writer
Ramin Setoodeh suggested
exactly that. Reviewing a play
starring Will & Grace’s Sean
Hayes, Setoodeh wrote: “It’s
weird seeing Hayes play straight.
He comes off as wooden and
insincere, like he’s trying to hide
something, which of course he is.”If you are openly gay, your
sexuality trumps your talent
and your career could suffer.
Straight actors playing gay,
though, are brave , deserving
of Oscars. It has worked for
Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour
Hoffman, Hilary Swank,
Sean Penn and Jared Leto.
Meanwhile, no openly gay or
lesbian actor has won. Despite
Guadagnino’s fine sentiments,
if Call Me By Your Name figures
in this season’s awards, it won’t
change that. Is it time for an
#OscarsSoStraight moment?
Call Me By Your Name is in
cinemas on 27 OctSteve Rosefi lm
very time a new movie
about a gay relationship
comes out, the question
gets asked: “Why did they have
to cast straight actors?” White
actors playing characters of
colour is seen as inappropriate;
what about straight actors
playing gay characters?
The issue has risen again with
Call Me By Your Name, a new
film detailing a romance between
a precocious teenager (Timothée
Chalamet) and the Adonis-like
American grad student (Armie
Hammer) who’s staying at his
Italian country home. It’s already
being talked of in Oscar terms.
Does it matter that both leads are
straight? As were Jake Gyllenhaal
and Heath Ledger in Brokeback
Mountain; Annette Bening and
Julianne Moore in The Kids Are
All Right; Jim Carrey and Ewan
McGregor in I Love You Phillip
Morris; and so on.
The film’s director, Luca
Guadagnino, ha s a valid
response: “This film is about the
blossoming of love and desire, no
matter where it comes from and
toward what. So I couldn’t have
ever thought of casting with any
sort of gender agenda ... I prefer
much more never to label my
performers in any way.”
If only others in “liberal”
Hollywood thought the same.
A 2013 survey found more
than half of LGBT performers
had overheard homophobic
comments on set, and felt
that studios found it harder to
market LGBT performers.
Actors back this up. Thorn
Birds heart throb Richard
Chamberlain, who came out inE
Why Hollywood takes
a hetero approach tocasting gay cinema
Straight to the heart
fi lm
Gay away
Timothée
Chalamet and
Armie Hammer
in Call Me By
Your NameALLSTAR/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS