“I can think of at least four actors absolutely hiding their sexuality. it’s painful.”
Kate Winslet opened about the stigma surrounding LGBTQ+ actors in the industry while promoting her new film Ammonite.
Sitting down with The Sunday Times, the Academy Award winner revealed that she knows at least four actors that are fearful of coming out.
“I cannot tell you the number of young actors I know – some well known, some starting out – who are terrified their sexuality will be revealed and that it will stand in the way of their being cast in straight roles, ” she said.
Although the entertainment industry has slowly increased its LGBTQ+ representation, the same cannot be said regarding LGBTQ+ actors being cast in diverse roles.
“I’m telling you. A well-known actor has just got an American agent and the agent said, ‘I understand you are bisexual. I wouldn’t publicise that,'” she elaborated.
“I can think of at least four actors absolutely hiding their sexuality. It’s painful. Because they fear being found out. And that’s what they say. ‘I don’t want to be found out.'”
The Holiday actress also pointed out that the stigma applies mostly to male actors.
“It’s bad news. Hollywood has to drop that dated crap of, ‘Can he play straight because, apparently, he’s gay?'” she exclaimed.
Winslet’s recent interview comes at the same time as her recently released LGBTQ+ movie, Ammonite.
The Francis Lee-directed film stars Winslet as famed fossil collector and palaeontologist Mary Anning, who ends up starting a romantic relationship with Saoirse Ronan’s character Charlotte Murchison, a wealthy woman with dwindling health.
Speaking with Harper Bazar UK, the 45-year-old actress expressed her hope that the film will help usher in more LGBTQ+ films to the mainstream.
“There need to be more LGBTQ+ films so that we don’t feel the compulsion to compare the few that do exist, it’s totally mad,” she said.
Related: Here’s where and when you can watch Ammonite in the UK
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