‘Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa is proud to be part of a show that has a ‘profound effect on people’
The actors plays Eric Effiong, the gay best friend of main character Otis Milburn
By Steve Brown
Words: Steve Brown
Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa says he’s proud to be part of a show that has a ‘profound effect on people’.
The actor stars as Eric Effiong – the gay best friend of main character Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) – in the hit Netflix series.
And in the first series, we saw Eric stand up to bullies in a bid to be his true self and on January 17, the show is set to return.
In the trailer – which was released yesterday – we saw the debut of Sam Outalbali as French student Rahim who turns heads as he arrives and is seen asking Eric for a date and the two are seen kissing each other – much to the dismay of Adam.
And while speaking to Metro, Gatwa revealed he gets messages from men and women in countries where it is illegal to be gay, thanking him for representing them on screen.
He said: “I do get a lot of messages from people. Still now to this day I get DMs from people being like, either, ‘It’s illegal to be gay where I am in the world or my family find out then things are going to be really tricky for me’.
“I do receive a lot of those messages and it’s quite nice – not nice to receive those messages because it’s obviously horrible to think that anyone is going through that.
“But whereas we had such a fun time in season one, we literally were just having a laugh making this TV programme and there was a TV programme that came out of us just laughing every day, it’s just quite nice to know that it also has a really profound effect on people as well and it tackles a deeper issue in a multitude of ways.”
The first season received critical acclaim and told the story of Otis and his friend Maeve Wiley who set up a sex clinic at their secondary school, with the help of his unknowing sex therapist mother, played by Gillian Anderson.
The new season will continue the story of late bloomer Otis who will have to learn to manage his newly discovered sexual urges if he wants his relationship with girlfriend Ola to succeed.