‘American Horror Story: NYC’ star Russell Tovey talked about all things gay: coming out early, playing queer characters, and doing sex scenes with straight actors in a recent episode of the Just for Variety podcast.
The 40-year-old English actor opened up about how he was told not to come out as gay early in his acting career and what he thought about that piece of advice.
“I remember thinking, ‘I’m hearing you. Thank you very much. I appreciate your advice, but I’m going to do this because this feels authentic to me,’” he shared.
Tovey continued,
“This feels important to me. It feels important to my life outside of my pretend life of playing all these characters. I have to have the stability to know who I am outside of this.”
He then talked about playing queer characters and how much joy it gave him expressing,
“I don’t know, but I don’t regret it on any level because my career has taken me somewhere really exciting. And I’ve played so many queer guys, queer characters that have brought me so much joy and I feel like have brought a lot of people joy and changed, set the dial somewhere else for people.”
Moreover, the actor touched on the subject of him “always having sex” scenes on screen stating,
“I always get jobs where I make out with a lot of people. I’m always having sex and stuff on screen. My mom, bless her, has seen me have sex in multiple ways and she’s seen me die hundreds of times. I feel sorry for her that she’s seen sex and death through my eyes a lot.”
In fact, he is playing the role of a closeted New York cop in the latest season of the ‘American Horror Story’ anthology. In the sexy horror-thriller series, Tovey is featured in a variety of bedroom scenes that involve leather and bondage gear.
He also shared about his experience making out and whipping a character portrayed by straight actor Zach Meiser. The production had an intimacy coordinator on set, but despite that, the actor admitted,
“There is an anxiety that kicks in that you go, ‘This is a straight guy, I’m a gay guy, openly, and we’re going to be kissing now.’”
He continued,
“And we did it and then his tongue slipped in and then they cut and he went to me, ‘I just slipped my tongue in there…Is that all right?’ I said, ‘If it’s all right with you.’”
“The next time we did it, I was like, ‘This guy is up for it! This guy’s committed. I absolutely love this, let’s go for it!’ So then we are like eating each other’s face, tongue in each other’s face. At one point I thought, ‘I’m going to spit in his mouth. No, don’t do that. That’s too much.’ I had to hold back. That’s when you get in trouble,” Tovey shared about him and Meiser continuing to shoot the sequence.
You can watch more of the actor and his steamy scenes in ‘American Horror Story: NYC,’ which airs weekly on Wednesdays at 10p.m. ET/PT on FX.
Sources: variety.com, harpersbazaar.com
I first saw him on Looking (a mediocre show at best) and didn’t care for his character
or Jonathan Groff’s either.
Russell is out and gay! He is a great actor and I have seen a lot of his work.
Keep up the great work 🌈
I first saw him in the British version of Being Human, he played a werewolf. The next time I saw him was on Dr. Who and then on Looking. Loved him in all those, he had no fear playing Gay or being naked, it made the parts more real.
I first became aware of him on one of my favorite gay shows of all time Looking. Ever since have been watching everything he’s in. Love his ears <3
It’s acting, nothing more. It’s good some straight guys realize that and become the character.