Stanley Tucci thinks straight actors should be able to play gay roles

Oscar-nominated actor Stanley Tucci has weighed in on the debate as to whether heterosexual actors should be permitted to take on gay character roles. The eminent actor, who is straight, has been criticised in the past for taking gay roles in Supernova and The Devil Wears Prada. 

In a new interview for the popular Desert Island Discs series on BBC Radio 4, Tucci opined that the stage and screen is a safe space where actors should be able to take on a range of characters and personalities unlike their own. He said that “the whole point” of acting is “to play different people”.

“I feel much safer on stage than I do in real life,” he said. “Sometimes, walking into a cocktail or dinner party, I get very nervous.”

On the topic of backlash related to his role in the 2020 movie Supernova, the actor added: “Obviously, I believe that’s fine, and I am always very flattered when gay men come up to me and talk about my role in The Devil Wears Prada or Supernova, and say I did it the right way”.

Adding: “Because often it is not done the right way, and I really do believe as an actor that you are supposed to play different people. You just are.”

Tucci’s comments follow a long-lived debate on the topic. In 2022, Ben Winshaw gave his two cents on the matter, explaining that, besides the argument, “discussion” and “listening to each other” about the topic were most crucial. 

“I think Eddie did a beautiful job,” he said of his co-star Eddie Redmayne for his Oscar-nominated performance as a trans woman in The Danish Girl. “And it’s done. Going forward, there will be other films in which the role is given to someone who lived that experience. Why shouldn’t a role like that be given to someone who knows, inside, what the character is? I’m all for that.”

“I feel the same, sometimes, about straight actors playing gay parts,” he added. “I’m critical if I don’t think the performance is, from my subjective experience, accurate. I might think, ‘I don’t believe you!’ And even a small moment of hesitation or inauthenticity will block my engagement with the whole story. So I understand these questions.”