Jeremy Robust has some nuanced ideas about heterosexual actors enjoying homosexual characters.
The “Succession” star is being each praised and excoriated on social media for his opinion that the criticism about straight actors enjoying homosexual folks is “valid.” Within the upcoming Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” Robust, who’s straight, portrays a person who was homosexual in actual life.
“Yes, it’s absolutely valid,” Robust advised the Los Angeles Instances on Monday. “I’m sort of old fashioned, maybe, in the belief that, fundamentally, it’s [about] a person’s artistry, that great artists, historically, have been able to, as it were, change the stamp of their nature.”
“That’s your job as an actor,” he added. “The task, in a way, is to render something that is not necessarily your native habitat … While I don’t think that it’s necessary [for gay roles to be played by gay performers], I think that it would be good if that were given more weight.”
Robust ― greatest recognized for his position on HBO’s “Succession” as Kendall Roy, the spiritually damaged inheritor to a media empire fortune ― was forged final 12 months in “The Apprentice” because the notorious right-wing political fixer Roy Cohn, a closeted homosexual man.
Cohn was integral to the so-called Lavender Scare of the Fifties, the place Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) spearheaded an ethical panic about gay folks in authorities. Cohn additionally remained silent concerning the Eighties AIDS disaster, till he himself died in 1986, at age 59, from AIDS-related problems.
Robust mentioned he has thought of the complexities of the fashionable discourse about straight actors portraying homosexual folks, as no publicly out homosexual actor has ever gained an Oscar for doing so within the 96-year historical past of the awards. In the meantime, there have been 9 straight males who gained Oscars for portraying homosexual folks.
Robust’s remarks about equal alternative, regardless of his personal position as a homosexual man in “The Apprentice,” have precipitated heated dialogue on-line.
“He’s not wrong,” wrote one social media consumer. “No one is saying that only gay people can play the roles, just that there should be some priority to level [the] playing field. You can’t say ‘the most talented actor should get the roles’ unless you think there are no talented gay actors.”
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“ITS CALLED ACTING FOR A REASON,” one other particular person wrote.
Robust has needed to face public criticism of his strategy to appearing earlier than, when his personal “Succession” co-star Brian Cox described Robust’s desire for technique appearing as “fucking annoying” (whereas additionally praising Robust as “talented” and “very good”).
However Robust, a classically educated actor, finally doesn’t appear to fret about a lot besides his craft.
“What I do feel, whoever plays any part ever, is that you have to take these things as seriously as you take your own life, and it is not a game, and that these people and their struggles and the experiences you’re trying to render are not a plaything,” Robust advised the LA Instances.
“I certainly don’t do these things just for my own self-aggrandizement,” he concluded.
