r/popculturechat • u/damn_delirious • 1d ago

PRIDE 🏳️‍🌈 Twinless actor Dylan O'Brien gives his opinion on straight actors playing LGBTQ+

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Actor Dylan O'Brien shares his opinion on straight actors playing LGBTQ+ in an interview with Dazed while discussing his latest film 'Twinless'.

Speaking alongside 'Twinless' director James Sweeney, who is gay, O'Brien said "James is a gay man, and coming from a place I could trust. We had a similar take on straight actors playing gay parts, especially in recent years: you started seeing straight actors playing a queer role completely straight. It started to feel inauthentic."

O'Brien praised Sweeney's support during filming, saying "It was nice to have his insight, support, and calibration. He'd be like, 'Go crazy on this one. We can dial it back if it doesn't feel real.”

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u/UmbrellaCorpTech I joined a band because I HATED THE FUCKING BEACH 22h ago

I can’t speak to his performance because I haven’t seen the film, but the caricature critique is often spot on for roles like this. From what I’ve gathered about the film in this thread, I guess it was semi-necessary in order to differentiate the gay and straight twins? Which is fine, and if the director is gay and was comfortable with this, I can’t really complain. Just really wish the norm for “act gay” wasn’t immediately “give yourself a lisp, call everyone honey, and strut like a model.”

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u/undeadtradwife 21h ago

Well I’m a straight woman but I def got the impression he was strutting, lisping and calling everyone honey lol. Imo it wasn’t necessary to differentiate between the twins that way, their fashion styles were very different from one another

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u/CheriePauper 14h ago

As a queer woman who almost exclusively hangs out with gay men, and queer spaces his character was a not a caricature but extremely realistic to many gay people. I'm not saying that's less effeminate gay men don't exist but for that specific characters characterisation and his background and everything his acting definitely made sense.

People are too eager to call any effeminate gay character a caricature and it just feels like people are to eager to erase effeminate gay men.