that's the only thing I had to use to try to showcase who I am. I do deliver that on a platter for people to pick and choose what they want for their oeuvre, I guess.īut it's hard because once I realize that my only currency would be my physical beauty. I'm an actor, but for some reason, I don't really get taken seriously for things that I'm capable of doing because a lot of times people are just more interested in my personal life. It goes back to how you look because if you were playing the goofy sidekick, these things wouldn’t be big issues, right?Īnd the thing is, that's my personality. And that's the problem with this industry. You have to basically be straight-acting and you have to be white, essentially. You have to still be guarded and still play that availability game. I think that still is hard for me because I was at the time one of the only queer people, which I wasn't out, who was able to really kind of exist in Hollywood.Īnd then basically I was telling everyone that you can be gay - even after I came out - you can be gay, but your mannerisms have to be on mute. I still miss how things were before I moved to L.A.īecause you were in the closet for the majority of your career, how much do you feel like you missed out on building community with other queer people in Hollywood? And it was really damaging to me because, still to this day, I find myself longing to be that kid who could be wholly anonymous. So yeah, I definitely had to lock all that back up. They wanted, I guess, my mannerisms to match my douchey haircut and my jaw. I was told I had to match my mannerisms and things that I needed to do to be what people wanted in Hollywood. I think I learned shame through this industry. Am I mischaracterizing that?Ĭolton Haynes: I think it's a mixture. I t was only the industry that forced you back in the closet. You were out in high school, you took your boyfriend to prom, you danced as a go-go boy at a gay bar. Jeffrey Masters: One of the most interesting parts of your story for me is that growing up, you didn't seem to have an internalized shame or stigma around being gay.
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You can listen to the full interview on Apple Podcasts or read excerpts below. Haynes joins the LGBTQ&A podcast this week to talk about the barriers that queer actors still face in Hollywood, how being forced back into the closet affected his mental health, his early experiences with sexual assault, and his new memoir, Miss Memory Lane. It plots each pivotal moment of his life and career while expertly skipping over the mundane clichés typically associated with tales of people growing up in small towns who yearn to make it big in Tinseltown. and went on his first audition, but as he makes clear in his new memoir, Miss Memory Lane, "We still have a long way to go." More than simply a celebrity memoir, Miss Memory Lane is a radical act of honesty from a seasoned storyteller. Now that he's publicly out about his sexuality, he's experienced a dramatic shift in how Hollywood sees him, rarely going in for roles that aren't "the gay best friend or the gay dad."Ī great deal has changed for queer actors in the entertainment industry since 2007 when Haynes to L.A. And it was really damaging to me because, still to this day, I find myself longing to be that kid who could be wholly anonymous," he says. "I definitely had to lock all that back up. Forced back into the closet, he set about changing his voice and mannerisms.
He was typecast as a dumb jock, a jerk, the boyfriend of the beautiful singer in a music video - roles he was told that meant he couldn't be gay. He was unequivocally out.īut because of how Haynes looks, Hollywood quickly decided that he was a leading man upon arriving in Los Angeles. He danced in his teens as a go-go boy at a local gay bar called Big Daddy's and even took his boyfriend to prom. Before moving to Los Angeles and starring in hit shows like Teen Wolf and Arrow,Ĭolton Haynes didn't care who knew that he was gay.