Writer's Gay About-face

Ramin Setoodeh, the Newsweek writer who caused a stir last year when he suggested gay actors aren't convincing in straight roles, now says he doesn't think Hollywood wants gay actors to play gay either.

In a new column for The Daily Beast, Setoodeh recalls the column in which he argued that Sean Hayes did not make a convincing straight man in the Broadway musical Promises, Promises. Upon catching another performance of the show, he says he came to a realization.

"It's not just that audiences don't often see openly gay actors in straight roles. What's even more unsettling is that Hollywood doesn't even allow gay actors to play gay."

Setoodeh points to the fact that not a single gay actor is up for an Oscar nomination this year, and that the actors who are potential nominees for playing gay (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right, among others) are all straight.

He then goes on to argue that no one questions Natalie Portman as a ballerina or Colin Firth as a king, "but audiences still haven't gotten to the point where they can suspend disbelief long enough to accept a gay person in a leading romantic role."

The article comes one week after Rupert Everett told the BBC he was forced to leave Hollywood after coming out because no one would hire him.

Read the full column here.