Timothée Chalamet wasn’t Hollywood Royalty when Luca Guadagnino cast him in Call Me By Your Name that was the film that catapulted him to fame. Now he’s an Emmy-winning, bankable star in his own right, stealing the spotlight at every red carpet and poised to break boundaries this year as the Fairy Godmother in the splashy Cinderella remake.Īnd while I agree that big stars are needed to get eyes on small films, I think there’s a counterpoint that these low-to-mid-budget projects are the very films that can afford the risk, because success isn’t guaranteed anyway. I think immediately of Billy Porter, who was known on Broadway but not necessarily in Hollywood before Pose. Michael: And isn’t that The Great Conundrum? It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it’s one that ignores the reality that people “break out” all the time. I do think that’s changing, but clearly we’re not there yet. That’s why someone like Jodi Foster came out so late in her career, for fear of missing out on opportunities. And those stars won’t get made until they get a chance to prove producers wrong.
The reason we don’t have a big corral of bankable, openly LGBTQ+ stars is that they haven’t been granted the same opportunities, because producers think they won’t sell tickets.
Obviously, we should be past the point where it’s necessary to bring in Tom Hanks for people to relate, but look at what happened when he got COVID-19!
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It should not have taken Tom Hanks starring as a professional dying of AIDS for everyday Americans to sit up and take notice, but that movie (for which Hanks won a Best Actor Oscar) really brought awareness to greater heights. I always think of Philadelphia, one of Hollywood’s first mainstream depictions of the HIV crisis, which had killed more than 100,000 people by its 1993 release. Looking back, for example, we could argue that queer actors were denied opportunities in The Favourite and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, but without Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, and Melissa McCarthy (all brilliant), would those movies have even been made? Would people have gone to see them? Movies like Supernova and Ammonite, both second features from young directors, draw attention (press and awards consideration, if not box office) by casting big stars. Though when it comes to casting and awards contention, the big thing to remember is that Hollywood is first and foremost a business. And those stars won’t get made until they get a chance to prove producers wrong.” “The reason we don’t have a big corral of bankable, openly LGBTQ+ stars is that they haven’t been granted the same opportunities, because producers think they won’t sell tickets.