Sometimes actors say things in interviews they probably don’t think a lot about, but which turns out far more controversial than they expected. That seems to be true of Russell Tovey, who in trying to explain how he turned out the way he did, managed to piss off a lot of people who feel he was denigrating effeminate gay men.
Talking to The Guardian about his new TV series, Banished, he said, “I feel like I could have been really effeminate, if I hadn’t gone to the school I went to. Where I felt like I had to toughen up. If I’d have been able to relax, prance around, sing in the street, I might be a different person now. I thank my dad for that, for not allowing me to go down that path.”
I’d be willing to bet what he was trying to say is he’s grateful for who he is now and the career it’s allowed him to have, but thanking someone for ‘not allowing me to go down that path’ of being effeminate does sound pretty bad.
His comments were linked to his thoughts about how rare it is for an out gay man to be able to play gay and straight characters, saying, “Because it’s probably given me the unique quality that people think I have. I get told, a lot, that I’m kind of carving my own path. That there are not many actors who are out and are able to play straight, and gay, and everyone’s OK with it.”
So is Tovey expressing internalised homophobia, or did he just make his point really badly? You decide.
Eddie Redmayne has just picked up an Oscar and later this year he’s got a new movie that’s just the sort of thing that could land him another nomination, playing the central role in The Danish Girl.
The documentary Out To Win, from Small Town Gay Bar’s Malcolm Ingram, is premièring next month at SXSW in Texas next month, but ahead of that a teaser trailer for the LGBT-themed doc has arrived, which you can take a look at below.
Ben Whishaw is getting involved in a lot of espionage this year, as he’s reprising his role as Q in the James Bond movie Spectre, and he’s also heading to TV for the five-part series London Spy, based on a script by Child 44’s Tom Rob Smith.
The queer-themed movie That’s Not Us is nearly at the finish line. The improvised romantic comedy is in the can, but still needs a bit of help with post-production funding to get it finished. It’s now launched a 
Perhaps the most memorable moment of the Oscar ceremony was when a nicely buff Neil Patrick Harris re-enaced a scene from Birdman, stripping down to his underwear, wandering around backstage before appearing in a state of undress in front of the star-packed audience.
Just about everyone else involved with The Imitation Game has stepped up defend the fact it’s about a gay person but doesn’t portray its main subject as being particularly gay. While it doesn’t pretend Alan Turing was straight, in the movie he doesn’t have any sex and the only relationship we’re shown is a schoolboy infatuation.
While an increasing number of American actors have come out in the last few years, none of them have been people who are at the top of the a-list (or who have reached that post-coming out). That’s not because no extremely famous people are gay, just that none of them have wanted to reveal their sexuality.
The challenges for LGBT people around the world can be very different and yet often share common themes. While there’s been unprecedented attention played to the transsexual community in the west in the past year or so, as well as converage of increasingly anti-gay attitudes in parts of Africa – what is it like to be transgender and/or intersex in Kenya?