Stanley Tucci game for straight actors playing queer characters; Here’s what the Supernova actor said

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Stanley Tucci, who has authentically played a queer character in two major films, Supernova (2020) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006), has got talking about whether actors who are straight in real life should play queer characters on the screen. In an interview with the BBC's Desert Island Discs (via The Guardian), Stanley Tucci revealed that despite the criticism for playing an LGBTQ character, he is “always very flattered” when queer men tell him that he has played the role in The Devil Wears Prada or Supernova in the “right way”. But he agreed that often it is not done the right way.

But Tucci believes that as an actor “you are supposed to play different people. You just are”. In 2022, actor Ben Whishaw commented on the debate and said that he feels the same about straight actors playing queer parts.

He said that if he doesn’t think the performance is accurate, “…even a small moment of hesitation or inauthenticity will block my engagement with the whole story, So I understand these questions”. He went on to praise Eddie Redmayne’s performance in The Danish Girl as trans pioneer Lili Elbe, which had got the Best Actor Oscar nomination. Ben Whishaw had a supporting role in the film.

But going forward, “there will be other films in which the role is given to someone who lived that experience” and so “why shouldn’t a role like that be given to someone who knows, inside, what the character is?” he questioned, stating, “I’m all for that.” Actor Benedict Cumberbatch also spoke about playing a queer character in the Netflix film The Power of the Dog (2021). He explained that it “wasn’t done without thought”. The film received 12 Oscar nominations and won an Oscar Award for Best Director for Jane Campion.FAQs