Everything Now actor Noah Thomas: A director once asked ‘Can you not be so effeminate?’
The actor added he would like "any queer character to exist as they exist" when speaking on a panel moderated by Attitude for National Student Pride
By Dale Fox
Actor Noah Thomas has spoken about his experiences as an out queer actor, sharing how a director once asked him to “not be so effeminate.”
The Everything Now star was speaking at National Student Pride on Saturday (24 February), on a panel on queer representation in media moderated by Attitude editor-in-chief Cliff Joannou.
Asked what changes he’d like to see in the industry, the actor said: “Allowing any queer character to exist as they exist.”
Expanding, he said: “I worked with a director once and they said, ‘Can you not be so effeminate?’ And I was like, ‘What? What do you mean by that?’ And they were like, ‘Well, the way you’re coming across is feminine.’ And I went, ‘But because the character’s really effeminate and really camp.’”
Thomas was joined on the panel by Doctor Who and Queer as Folk writer Russell T Davies, It’s a Sin actor Nathaniel Curtis, Shadow and Bone actor Jack Wolfe and Heartstopper actress Bel Priestley.
“Queerness doesn’t have an appearance” – Noah Thomas
He added: “What sometimes is failed to be recognised is that queerness doesn’t have an appearance. We don’t have one united thing, like everyone’s going to be either really effeminate or people are going to be masc or more femme. We’re just going to do what we’re going to do. Ever being asked to play up or play down something, I always protest it.”
Heartstopper‘s Bel Priestley echoed this, saying: “People don’t need to be obviously queer. I feel like when you look back through TV … the gay character’s always been so eccentric, and so over the top. And it’s to show that it’s obvious, but it’s so overdone and I feel like now … it can just be a queer person being themselves and that is enough.”
“It doesn’t just need to be constantly sex-driven” – Nathaniel Curtis on queer tropes in media
On what tropes he would like to see disappear from film and TV, , It’s a Sin actor Nathaniel Curtis said: “I think it’s promiscuity; I think stop over-sexualising queer people … allow them to live and breathe in the moments where it’s just them being like sat at home watching TV. It doesn’t just need to be constantly sex driven and I think that especially the violence and the sex – out, done, leave it; I don’t want it.”
Meanwhile, Shadow and Bone’s Wolfe said visibility behind the camera was as important as in front of it for actors. “It means so much as an actor, especially playing a queer role, especially in Shadow and Bone, where the story wasn’t inherently my story. I was one of 16 characters and I was the one who had a boyfriend that was going through stuff,” he explained.
“To just clock eyes with the people behind the camera or people within the vicinity who understand where you’re coming from and understand your point of view, I think politically is important, but also humanly, physically, it just makes the work easier.”