Actors who've played roles with a different sexual orientation to theirs

A lot of debate has been caused over this:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/30/straight-jacket.html

However I don't entirely buy it. If straight actors can play gay characters, why not the other way around?

Which straight/gay actors/actresses do you think gave convincing performances in a gay/straight role?

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You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never. (The Red Shoes, 1948)

I think the most convincing example of a gay performer playing a straight character is probably one we don't know about, and possibly never will.

As for whether it can go both ways: sure. Though I wouldn't have a hard time believing that it's harder to play gay from straight than straight from gay. For better or worse, male homosexuality (at least in the United States) seems often (though not always, obviously) characterized by affectations and other things "added." Perhaps it's simply easier to "add" something than to drop it for a performance, though among great actors I wouldn't think this would be a disqualifying challenge. But for anyone below that rung? I could buy that it's more difficult for lesser actors.

Neil Patrick Harris plays a womanizer on How I Met Your Mother.
In Harold & Kumar, he plays as himself but as a straight guy.

Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas in Philidelphia did a great job.
John Ritter in Sling Blade did an excellent job as Vaughan Cunningham.
And Sean Penn was very convincing Milk.

Don't you think that there are many actors, who have not come out, who play straight characters all the time?

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I think this is a bunch of hooey and shows there is still prejudice, Would anyone thought Hayes was unconvincing playing straight if they didn't know he was gay? I saw Hayes in that TV biopic of Martin and Lewis and didn't notice any problems with him playing heterosexual Jerry Lewis. I don't have a problem watching old Rock Hudson movies (if I watched them, I did see episodes of McMillan and Wife after his death). He doesn't have any effeminate mannerisms (and didn't in real life) and never seems uncomfortable with women on screen. What's the name of the actor who starred in the musical version of The Producers? He's gay and came out before the stage version and no critic complained he was playing a hetero.

You mean Nathan Lane?

I'd say a musical is probably a bad example, though. It dovetails with quite a few stereotypes. But Nathan Lane's a great actor who can play anything; gay, straight, or meerkat.

But Nathan Lane being a gay wouldn't really work out...

Rupert Everett is gay... and, if I remember correctly, has played both gay and straight pretty convincingly...

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I guess both on screen & real life as well.

By the way, Promises Promises is a mediocre musical that was only a mild hit and that was because it had one popular song, "I'll Never fall in Love Again" that was all over the radio at the time, and so was a poor choice for a Broadway revival.

Michael C. Hall who played David Fisher on Six Feet Under...I still can't see him being straight even though he is.

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But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. W.B. Yeats

I agree completely with this post.

Its wholly unfortunate that in the land of the free and the home of the brave, there still are apparently millions of folks with hang-ups over what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home.

It's a total non-issue imo.

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

While there's undeniably prejudice out there, I'm not sure this is necessarily an example of it. Suggesting that it's harder for a gay man to portray as straight man than the other way around isn't a moral judgment, it's a technical one. And frankly, it seems like a pretty weird outlet for homophobia, if it is one.

Let's not confuse legal and moral equality between two things for pretending they're completely identical.

no Yoda , what I mean is, there is a handful of openly gay men and women appearing in mainstream movies.

What I am saying, is its a shame that there is an entrenched belief that to come out as it were would seriously affect your career. I just dont believe that is the case. It may have been true in previous generations, I don't believe it is true today.

Its a lot like back with teh McCarthy blacklisting of Commie sympathizers, teh following years saw plenty of right wingers in their personal life play sympathetic liberals and vice versa on film.

its acting. its pretend.

Charlton Heston the NRA guy in his personal life, is totally different from Soylent Green, Omega Man and Planet of the Apes.


Bottem line, not knowing who is gay or straight, makes it difficult to determine which performances are best.

More to the point, i am having difficulty determining why it matters. It might be a Canadian thing I will concede.

put it this way. Is Morgan Freeman an Excellent actor, or an Excellent Black actor?

If I am to assume Robin Williams is hetero, I think his role in the Birdcage was spot on excellent.

I have absolutely no lesser opinion of Bugs after seeing this.

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Lionel Barrymore was a right winger who hated Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In Key Largo his character praises Roosevelt. He gritted his teeth and said the words.

I can't think of the name right now, but there was this movie made during World War II which is practically pro Communist, showing peasant Ukrainians resisting the Nazis. In the cast playing happy Commies were Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger, and Anne Baxter. Walter Brennan was a racist right winger who did a dance on the set of his TV show at the time when he heard Martin Luther King died and supported George Wallace for President. Jagger had blacklisted director Joseph Losey living in England fired from a movie he was hired for there, and Baxter was a Republican known for getting into political arguments on the set of her movies with her more liberal colleagues.

I always had a feeling Robert Downey Jr. was gay.

Anna Paquin has come out as being bi and her and to my memory has played all straight characters.

Also Anne Heche which she was once a Lesbian and then now she is straight. I don't know what catagory she would fall into.

Bob Hope was very unconvincing as a womanizer in his biopic of New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, but that was because he wasn't good in dramatic roles, not because he was a secret gay.

What really matters is whether or not a straight person has the
talent to play a gay part, or a gay actor has the talent to play
a straight part. It's acting. I don't care what an actor's sexual
preference is. I'm a liberal who wants every American to enjoy
all the rights and privileges that comes with being a citizen here.
From working at their craft to marriage. If any actor can convince
me that they are the character they are playing, BRAVO! I don't
expect an actor who plays a serial killer to actully be one - or an
actor who plays a chef to actually be able to cook. Just make me
believe it.