Posted on 03/25/2025 2:43:48 PM PDT by nickcarraway
"Homophobia is alive and well still."
Nathan Lane has been an esteemed star of stage and screen for many years now. That should mean he would at least be in contention for any role he set his eyes on, but things haven’t always been that easy. As an out gay man, Lane has faced rampant homophobia throughout his career, leading him to believe that “Hollywood figured out nothing when it comes to me,” as he shared in a new interview with Vanity Fair. “I’ve been able to, I think, shift the perception a bit about me, but there’s always going to be that ‘He’s from the theater’ thing. It’s either homophobia or it’s just, ‘He gives big performances because he comes from the theater,'” the Gilded Age actor continued. “If they give me a chance, I seem to do well—but you have to get the part. You need a part to prove that. I gave up long ago trying to pursue it.”
Even after his exemplary performance in The Birdcage, Lane’s phone didn’t ring. When the actor expressed his disappointment to his agent at the time, an “old queen” himself, as Lane characterized, he recalls the agent responding that roles might have come if he “weren’t so open about [his] lifestyle.” Even after he left that agent, the line stayed quiet.
“I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, but I can’t help but think that [homophobia] played a part,” Lane continued, sharing that it explicitly impacted Space Jam, a movie he courteously said he “didn’t really care about.” Lane was up for the part of Michael Jordan’s assistant, Stan, which eventually went to Seinfeld actor Wayne Knight. “Apparently the director [Joe Pytka] saw me hosting the Tony Awards and thought that suggested I was too gay to play the part,” he shared. At least he has a good sense of humor about the whole affair; “So thank God, I didn’t have to do Space Jam,” he said.
While that was decades ago, in Lane’s experience, “homophobia is alive and well still.” He doesn’t “want it to seem like I don’t have a really terrific, enviable career,” but “before I die, it would be lovely to get to play a juicy, serious supporting role in some film.” Hopefully we all get to see that soon, but for now, you can find Lane in new multicamera sitcom Mid-Century Modern, which begins streaming Friday on Hulu.
I always thought “Space Jam” was a lame movie.
>> As an out gay man, Lane has faced rampant homophobia throughout his career bla bla BLA
Faggots and faggot supporters and their all-queer, all the time, 24/365 OCD.
I’m not afraid of them. I despise them.
However, not too gay for Butt Jam.
They’ve taken over the Democrats and Republicans.
Yeah, he’s lucky he wasn’t in it.
I like him. Talented and funny.
I enjoyed him in The Producers. Mostel was better though.
Isn’t Space Jam a children’s show? If so then what is his complaint?
Nobody wants to expose their children to grooming.
Or maybe Wayne Knight got the role because “Seinfeld” was the hottest thing around in 1996.
He’s a funny dude but like many flamboyant gays on tv and in film they a wind up playing a stereotype for laughs or pathos, they come off phony.
Actors get typecast. It’s been happening forever. Just because he’s gay means he’s exempt from being typecast?
And, I loved Rock Hudson when I was a kid. But after I learned about his personal life, it made his love scenes seem hollow and uninteresting. Never watched him again. It wasn’t because he was gay. He just no longer fit in the rolls he was playing. He had lost believability.
Nathan, you’re too gay for this solar system.
Well, you always thought right.
He is too gay for most movies. Sure, he can be funny but he is so very gay...
It was mostly.
I am against mentally ill sexually deviant people who try to normalize their deviant behavior having an impact on children.
That just good parenting, not a phobia.
My wife said the same thing about Rupert Everett. Once he came out as gay, she didn’t care to see him in romantic movies .
Not because she hates gays, but she couldn’t believe in his character anymore.
Wrists weren't as flopsy and hips not as swishy as the role demanded.
When I was in high school my best friend’s father got “confused” and suddenly was having big parties in his very large house. These parties were for his new gay friends. My buddy’s mother put up with it, usually by being pretty drunk all the time.
Because of this I met probably a couple of hundred queer guys. Overall, most of them were self-loathing types if you got to know them. There were the flamers, the macho ones and the ones who seemed “normal”. Almost all of them hit on me, I was 16-17 at the time.
Anyway, I would get kicked out of these gay parties for basically doing the same thing at each party. I’d wait until these guys all got pretty drunk and act like I was all interested in what they were talking about. Because at the time I was to say the least pretty good looking and built like the Hulk and they would become very animated when speaking to me. I suppose they thought they had a possible candidate for conversion - NOT! Once they got pretty drunk I’d say “OK, just to be clear, you put yours into his backside then take it out and put it in his mouth? So, basically, you all eat $hit”. Sorry for the language but it’s the truth and usually I’d get kicked out of the house.
This was decades ago and part of the guys I met were in the early Act Up type groups or other gay organizations. They would all talk about how they were going to get their kind into “Entertainment”, “The Media”, “News Organizations” and even “religious groups”. Looking back they did exactly what they planned on and today are as mainstream as possible. But one thing still applies, you will never hear them talk about the physical acts I asked them about as a teenager. It’s always about emotions and feelings instead of the absolute truth and that truth is that they eat $hit.
So a fat, unathletic, short dude who is also not funny didn’t make the cut in a basketball comedy movie?
Yes, clearly homophobia.
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