Russell T. Davies recently spoke up about why he believes Andrew Scott was overlooked by the BAFTAs this year, reminding us about an important component to the ongoing conversation about queer actors playing queer roles.
When the BAFTA nominees were announced this year, All of Us Strangers received a well-deserved six nominations, although it ultimately did not win any of its categories. But the number of nominations it received — for Outstanding British Film, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Casting — made a lack of nod for Scott’s leading role feel like a pointedly glaring omission.
“What I think happened there was, when a gay man plays a gay man, he’s not considered to be acting," Davies said during a recent queer representation in media panel, according to Attitude. “I genuinely think that happened there, that people thought, ‘Oh, it’s very good, but he’s not acting there. He’s not reaching; he was just being himself.”
The Doctor Who showrunner went on to explain that that’s part of why he finds it so important to make sure queer actors are being considered for and cast in queer roles — a controversial topic, as it’s often interpreted as suggesting straight actors (or actors presumed to be straight) shouldn’t be allowed to play queer characters, but the reality is a lot more nuanced than that.
“If a queer person plays a queer role, people are like, ‘Oh yeah, very well done, lovely,’” actor Nathaniel Curtis said during the same panel. “But if a straight actor plays a queer role, a lot of the time, they’re like, ‘Give them an Oscar.’”
And the BAFTAs snub makes it even more frustrating that Scott was subjected to being asked about another actor’s nudity in a movie he wasn’t even in on the red carpet for the event, when the time could have been spent talking more about the role for which he deserved more recognition.
According to Davies, Scott gave “a world-class performance [that] was massively underrated because he’s gay and very publicly and visibly gay.” And unfortunately, he might not be wrong.
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