10 Straight Actors Who Played Gay Roles To Perfection

There was once a serious stigma about playing a gay person in Hollywood. As bad as it sounds, even in the 1990s the idea of playing gay could kill your career. There was still a rough aura about it, too many believing that playing gay meant folks thought you were gay in real life and many avoided it. Today, that’s changed, as many actors can be judged on just the role and not real life. It helps that often playing gay can be seen as “Oscar bait” for some actors and has even paid off with award wins.

There can be some rough bits here and there given how an actor plays the role. For example, Eric Stonestreet has won rave reviews for playing the role of Mitchell on Modern Family, but many cite the role as rather campy and over the top. Likewise for Robin Williams in The Birdcage; the role a bit too much.

But often, the best performances are actors who make these roles totally believable. You may not even think about the character being gay, which is often the point. Several roles involve just making gay people like anyone else, wanting to live their own lives without judgment. From movies to TV, straight actors are now playing homosexuals and making them relatable for audiences to enjoy. Again, some are able to play it much better than others to the point of vanishing into the role and not making the naughtiness too overt. Here are 10 cases of straight actors who have played gay characters to perfection to help erase this stigma for modern times.

1. Eric McCormack: Will & Grace

Eric McCormack had been bouncing around TV for a while in a variety of shows, including the Lonesome Dove series and Ally McBeal. He had some handsome looks so was usually the lady-killer type (literally, in a few crime shows) and it was easy to see him get women swooning. In 1998, he joined the cast of Will & Grace in the title role of Will with Debra Messing as Grace. The story is now famous: two long-time best friends who are really perfect for each other except Will is gay. McCormack just did amazing in the role, making Will relatable, with none of the classic stereotyping so it was believable that folks thought him straight at first. In many ways, the show helped bring gay culture to the middle-class American viewer; Will a great guy who just happened to be gay. McCormack won an Emmy for the role as it was a huge hit.

McCormack moved onto various roles as he also handled his marriage to Janet Leigh Holden that’s lasted 20 years. In 2016, he reunited with the rest of the W&G cast for an election video. The reaction was so huge that NBC revived the show and it’s a ratings smash all over again. So it’s come full circle for McCormack playing a character who helped shift the perception of homosexuals on TV in the ‘90s.

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