‘Bridgerton’ Proves Gay Actors Can Convincingly Play Straight Roles

Season 2 of Netflix's hit period drama Bridgerton hit small screens on Friday, and the sensual world of the only most tragic romances has enraptured the world once again. 

This season focuses on Lord Anthony Bridgerton, played by Jonathan Bailey, a viscount looking for his wife. Adverse to the pitfalls of love, he at first treats his search like a checklist that no one in Mayfair seems qualified to live up to. Then he meets Edwina Sharma, who checks every single box: kind, well-read, beautiful, etc. So why can't he stop glancing over his shoulder at her boorish older sister, Kate?

The steamy love triangle between the three has resurfaced an interesting conversation on representation. Bailey, who came out as gay in 2020, leads the season as the head of the romance and at times, there's so much tension between the Viscount and Kate that viewers at home are sweating into their couch cushions.

Over the decades, many straight, cisgender people have taken on LGBTQ+ roles in TV and film, even winning acclaim and awards. It seems like we're just getting to the point where out LGBTQ+ people are landing these queer roles, which we love to see. But there's always been an unspoken belief in Hollywood that out actors, especially when it comes to gay men, can't believably take on straight characters.

Straight actors play gay men all the time with zero chemistry between them (looking at you Love, Victor), but the aversion to gay actors playing straight characters, whether that's from production choices, Hollywood executives, or the audience, is rooted in homophobia. The shift in how one is perceived once he comes out as gay leads some to the conclusion that the actor is unable to sell a character's interest in women to the audience. That idea feels especially ludicrous when many LGBTQ+ folks landed these roles when they were in the closet, but they dissipate once they come out. 

They forget that many of us have been playing a part for a good chunk of our lives, Bailey included. "I thought that in order to be happy I needed to be straight," he recently told GQ on why he waited so long to share his identity with the world. 

Bailey completely dispels that notion with his aching performance in this season of Bridgerton. It's a blistering tale of longing and desire, furtive glances between forbidden lovers where time seems to stop, building to a scandalous ride from start to finish. Audiences can't get enough, and neither can we!

If there's anyone that knows how to act, it's a once-closeted queer person. Perhaps the idea that gay actors can't play straight is en route to being squashed once and for all.