Sir Ian McKellen: Agents Keep Stars in Closet

Sir Ian McKellen: Agents Keep Stars in Closet

While Gandalf may be overstating the case by claiming “There are no openly gay stars in Hollywood” (hello, Neil Patrick Harris? David Hyde Pierce? Harvey Fierstein?), the film industry is certainly not the bastion of liberal excess that conservatives like to make it out to be, with many stars’ sexualities being open secrets or not revealed til much later in life (McKellen officially came out at 49).

One theory goes that if a male lead is known to be homosexual, he won’t be “believable” if paired with a female lead in a romantic role. But somehow it works great the other way, with straight male actors like Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sean Penn netting awards and nominations for playing gay men!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 8th, 2010 at 3:12 am and is filed under Movies, People, Politics & Activism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.