Straight Playing Gay Bugs Fans

There's been much discussion of whether TV and film audiences will accept an openly gay actor playing a straight romantic lead, but in the United Kingdom, some soap opera fans are upset that an actor playing a partnered gay man is openly straight.

Danny Miller, who plays a gay character in Emmerdale, tells the U.K. newspaper The Sun he's received "a couple of nasty letters" from gay fans bothered by the fact that he's dating costar Kirsty-Leigh Porter.

"I suppose a lot of people would have thrown them in the bin, but I did feel for these people," he said. "They were gay lads and they'd built up an image of what I'd be like in real life, and they were gutted when that fantasy was crushed."

Miller's Emmerdale character, Aaron Livesy, is currently involved in a story line that has his boyfriend, Jackson (Marc Silcock), barely hanging on to life after being injured in a train crash.