“You can’t escape your past. The cut always reopens.” Armitage writes in his new audiobook–The Cut.
British actor Richard Armitage is best known for his role on The Hobbit, and recently, Netflix’s Obsession.
Back in 2023, the 52-year-old, Olivier Award-nominated actor publicly came out in an interview with Radio Times Magazine. He followed this up with the addition of the Pride and Transgender Pride flag on his X (formerly Twitter) bio.
Image Source: @RCArmitage on X.
The Red Eye actor shared with Radio Times Magazine that he first came out to friends, loved ones, and “anyone who mattered” when he was 19. He didn’t want his personal life to define or limit his acting career so he never felt the need to come out publicly, explaining:
“I was always waiting for that question to punch me in the face, and it never did. I thought, ‘Are people being polite, or do they just not want to know?’”
Adding:
“Let the work speak for itself.”
Armitage notes that since most of his characters are straight, the public also assumes the same to be true in real life. However, he says:
“I’ve always been very clear with myself: this is them, this is the bit that’s me. I think it helps you be an actor, because there was never a crossover.”
Fast forward to 2024, Armitage who grew up near Leicester, shares how he was first bullied at the age of three or four when he was first becoming interested in singing and dancing. Sadly, he figured his bullies might have known he was gay even before he knew what “gay” meant. He recalls:
“I do remember having a conversation with my mum, ‘Mum, they’re saying this word about me,’ and she said, ‘Oh, that’s not you. You’re a big strong boy. That’s not who you are.”
“This was pre-puberty, and you grow into yourself and you become more comfortable with yourself but it’s weird to learn something that’s so essential to your life from other people in a very negative way. That takes a lot of undoing.”
Not wanting to disappoint his mother, Armitage suppressed his own identity, sharing:
“Part of wanting to brush [my sexuality] under the carpet was because [what] my mum had told me. I wanted to believe her. I didn’t want to let her down.
The actor’s awful experiences with bullying led to a disdain for going to school and horrible after effects in his self-esteem, noting:
“You learn really early in your life that you’re worth less than the shit on somebody’s shoe because someone told you that…and you are unlearning that throughout the rest of your life – it’s still an ongoing process.”
The actor also opened up about the emotional trauma of having to experience bullying at such a young age and how he still continues to see it at work as an adult:
“I am 14 years old again and my face grows hot at the injustice. Kids can be very cruel but perhaps they don’t know any better. When we behave like this as adults, I find it very hard to reconcile.”
Armitage’s second novel and new audiobook The Cut is inspired by his bullying experiences from when he was younger. The plot of the books reads:
“Ben Knot and his friends are looking forward to a summer of fun and freedom once their last year of school is over. The class of 1994 have been through a lot together, good and bad, but teasing turns to bullying when the Knot gang target younger boy Mark Cherry. As tensions rise and violence escalates, the group fractures and tragedy strikes. Before the summer is over, one of them will be killed. Murdered by someone they called a friend.”
An important takeaway from Armitage’s latest novel:
“If the first cut is the deepest, then the last cut is going to end it all.”
The Cut will be available to order on Amazon on August 22. You can also catch more of Armitage on the ITVX thriller Red Eye and on Netflix’s Obsession.
Sources: Radio Times Magazine, The Times