After portraying Donald Trump‘s gay mentor Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, premiering Oct. 11 in theaters, the Golden Globe winner said he thinks LGBTQ actors should be “given more weight” when it comes to casting LGBTQ roles.
“Yes, it’s absolutely valid,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m sort of old fashioned, maybe, in the belief that, fundamentally, it’s [about] a person’s artistry, and that great artists, historically, have been able to, as it were, change the stamp of their nature. That’s your job as an actor. The task, in a way, is to render something that is not necessarily your native habitat. … While I don’t think that it’s necessary [for gay roles to be played by gay performers], I think that it would be good if that were given more weight.”
by cmaia1503
2 Comments
I mean it’s definitely a problem that gay actors are less likely to be cast for straight roles than vice versa.
Same with trans actors.
In a sense, he’s right and fairly measured in this take. One of the issues, though, is that marginalized people, in this case LGBTQs, aren’t afforded the same courtesy when it comes to playing straight roles. So it’s a take that unevenly benefits straight actors.
In that sense, then, it’s a take that serves the dominant status quo rather than challenging it.