Mr. Ross

When you hear Evan Ross’s voice—with its combo of depth and softness—and take in his generosity of spirit, it makes you think, Yeah, it makes sense he’s Diana Ross’s son. And when you learn he’s only 18, you realize he’s wise beyond his years, enough to tap into the darkness to play such challenging roles as the self-destructive gay HIV-positive teenager Amare in Life Support, which premiered this month on HBO. Starring Queen Latifah as a recovered crack addict turned activist who tries to save Amare, Life Support shines a light on people not often represented on the screen: African-American women and men living with HIV and AIDS, including men living on the "down low" like Amare’s lover, Michael. I talked with Evan about Life Support, love, struggle, forging his own identity—and what it was like to play gay.

Life Supportreally surprised me with its passion. What attracted you to the film and the role of Amare?
I had heard the script was really powerful and dealt with a lot of important issues. And when I spoke with Nelson George [the director and cowriter], he was very passionate about it. When I was looking through the roles, I thought Amare presented the harsher realities of HIV and I thought his would be a really interesting role to play—he wasn’t like any character I’d ever played before. So I decided to go with the role and see how I could bring something different to it. I thought, Let me see how I can play this role so we really still care about this character, even though he’s really messing up.

Yeah, Amare messes up a lot. He’s quite self-destructive. Can you talk about that?
One of the most important things is having people around you who love you and care for you. For Amare, he started to lose that after a while—his best friend and his sister and everyone had their own lives to deal with, and he started to feel alone. And it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Everyone has their own life to live. So I think Amare felt he had nobody as he was dealing with his disease and so many things. How he felt abandoned just made him give up.

It’s really interesting how Amare's gay sexuality wasn’t emphasized, but it was part of his character. When you look into Amare, do you think his self-destruction had anything to do with his not accepting being gay?
All of who he was impacted him. I don’t think there’s a reason why the film didn’t really emphasize his sexuality and how that was a part of him. It was subtle, and it was good it was subtle, because you can understand his downfall from all angles.

In terms of his issues with his sexuality and having HIV and the drugs, all of it…
Yeah, it was a combination of everything in his life that caused him to have a lot of trouble and give up. Everything was just too much. He didn’t have anybody to talk to, then he became part of the hustle, then he ending up selling all his medication and didn’t really care anymore.

When do you think he decided to give up?
I think it all started with his sister and not being able to go home, and his sister not wanting to be a part of his life and his messing up anymore. And then it was with his friends. Like Kelly, she was always there, but when Amare was really sick and on the floor, and as much as he was doing drugs to cover up his pain, Kelly asked him to leave. I think he felt betrayed, but at the same time it really wasn’t her fault. I think that’s something important too, because even though we see it and hear about it, we can’t really know what it’s like to deal with a situation like Amare’s or understand it totally.