Glee star Darren Criss stepped away from taking part in LGBTQ+ roles in 2018, saying he doesn’t need to be “one other straight boy taking a homosexual man’s function”. (Getty)
Darren Criss, greatest recognized for enjoying homosexual character Blaine Anderson in Glee, has shared how “superior” it was to be a part of bringing a groundbreaking homosexual relationship to TV screens.
Criss appeared in Ryan Murphy’s musical-comedy-drama Glee from 2010 to 2015, as butter-voiced singer and on-again-off-again accomplice of Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel. Criss identifies as heterosexual in his private life.
Showing on the Chicago Comedian & Leisure Expo over the weekend (27-28 April), Criss was requested what it was wish to be a part of such a groundbreaking TV relationship.
“It was f**king superior,” he replied. “These days, we simply name it a relationship on TV. However to contextualise it, a homosexual relationship on mainstream Fox, that’s a fairly cool factor to be part of,” he stated, in response to Leisure Weekly.
Persevering with, Criss defined that his upbringing in San Francisco helped lend him an affinity with the LGBTQ+ neighborhood, and that he’s really “culturally queer”.
“I’ve been so culturally queer my complete life,” he stated. “Not as a result of I’m making an attempt, I used to be gonna say not as a result of I’m making an attempt to be cool, however I’m gonna erase that, as a result of I am making an attempt to be cool. The issues in my life that I’ve tried to emulate, be taught from and be impressed by are 100 per cent queer as f**okay.
“It was in queer communities that I’ve discovered individuals I idolise. I’d say that’s a gross generalisation, that’s lots of issues and lots of people. However I grew up in San Francisco within the ’90s. I watched males die.
“There was an consciousness of the homosexual expertise that was not a international idea to me. So, it was a story that I cared deeply about.”
Because the dialog surrounding queer characters being performed by LGBTQ+ actors bought louder in recent times, Criss was one heterosexual star who publicly rejected the concept of taking over any homosexual roles sooner or later, regardless of the success doing so had introduced him.
He has additionally performed Andrew Cunanan, homosexual spree killer and assassin of Donatella Versace’s brother Gianni Versace, in Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace.
“I need to be sure I received’t be one other straight boy taking a homosexual man’s function,” Criss informed Bustle in 2018.
“The rationale I say that’s as a result of attending to play these characters is inherently an exquisite dramatic expertise. It has made for very compelling and fascinating individuals.”
Former Glee co-star Kevin McHale has additionally beforehand stated what everybody’s considering, and declared in 2020 that Darren Criss was one thing that “feels homosexual, however isn’t” – a sentiment that Criss has accredited of.