Kate Winslet says many gay Hollywood actors are scared to reveal their sexuality as they are scared that it will ruin their careers.
The Titanic star said that she knows “at least four actors” who are keeping their sexuality secret as they were “terrified” that it will stop them from being cast in straight roles.
Speaking to The Times’ Culture Magazine, the Oscar-winning actress, 45, said: “I cannot tell you the number of young actors I know – some well known, some starting out – who are terrified their sexuality will be revealed and that it will stand in the way of their being cast in straight roles.”
Winslet also said that a ‘well-known actor’ was told by their agent not to reveal that they were bisexual.
She said that the film industry harbored “judgement, discrimination and homophobia” and that the secrecy was “painful” for the actors who are terrified that their careers will be ruined once they show their true colors.
Jose Arroyo, a film studies professor at Warwick University, said to The Times: “People aren’t in the closet because they want to be [but] because they’re safer there.
“Hollywood is commercial, it is about selling ideas and desires … If an audience sees you with disgust or disdain, it is obviously an inhibition to the money men.”
In Winslet’s most recent movie, Ammonite, she plays the role of a real-life English paleontologist Mary Anning. It sees her embark on a secret relationship with Charlotte Murchison, played by Saoirse Ronan.
“I definitely feel a sort of a duty to serve Mary Anning. Still. And of course, the story,” Winslet told Digital Spy.
“The story is so much about her, and her remarkable achievements that were unsung, unknown, reappropriated by men, taken from her wrongfully.”
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