Russell Tovey on being ‘typecast in gay roles’ and his desire to play David Hockney
Tovey says he's not worried about being typecast: "There are billions of queer characters around the world so how the hell can I be pigeonholed?"
Looking actor Russell Tovey has said he doesn’t care about being ‘typecast in gay roles’ as there are so many ‘varied, nuanced’ queer characters to play.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone UK, Tovey spoke about a time, early in his career, when he was advised to avoid being typecast by only playing gay characters.
“When I was younger, people would tell me that I didn’t want to be typecast in gay roles, and I’d just say that there are billions of queer characters around the world so how the hell can I be pigeonholed?” said the actor, who famously played Jonathan Groff’s love interest in the cult HBO gay series.
“There’s so many stories to tell and every one I’ve done has been so varied, nuanced, and moved the dial somewhere along the line. I absolutely have to keep doing these roles.”
Aside from Looking, Tovey has played a number of gay characters including that of Joe Pitt in the 2017 London revival of the seminal gay play Angels in America, and a turn in the Russell T. Davies dystopian series Years and Years.
He next appears on the big screen in Plainclothes in which he plays an undercover police officer in 90s New York who is tasked with entrapping gay men cruising in public toilets, only to fall for one of the men he is pursuing. “Gay men were being targeted when they were cruising bathrooms, and the police would trap them and ruin their lives,” he says of the film’s plot.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | April 30, 2025 11:22 PM
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He was so attractive when he was younger, but he's not aging as well as I had hoped.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | April 30, 2025 7:43 PM
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I’d like to see a LOOKING reunion. That show was underrated.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | April 30, 2025 7:45 PM
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R2 Yes, I need to finish S2 and watch the movie. I've refrained because there's nothing new coming.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | April 30, 2025 8:01 PM
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Looks like his previous concern about remaining a poster boy for rugged masculinity was all for naught.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | April 30, 2025 8:45 PM
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Looks like a depressed thinner Phillip Hoffman in that one pic further below.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | April 30, 2025 8:50 PM
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He apologized for that comment about being butch or whatever although honestly he did have something of a point beneath the blather about thanking his dad for not allowing him to take dance lessons.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | April 30, 2025 9:28 PM
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I've always thought he had a really annoying face. It's the jug ears and weak chin.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | April 30, 2025 9:35 PM
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Too beefy for Hockney, who should be played by someone twinky like Alex Lawther.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | April 30, 2025 9:50 PM
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He was really out of his depth in Angels. He doesn’t really have any depth.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | April 30, 2025 10:11 PM
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This part ain't no tapdancing freak is it?
Russell better not be able to relax, prance around, or sing in the street!
This family don't go for no Sylvia Young bullshit.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | April 30, 2025 10:13 PM
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I only care about his ex-husband, or are they still married?
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | April 30, 2025 10:13 PM
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R14 they never got married. They were engaged for a while, broke up, got back together, then broke up again.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | April 30, 2025 10:56 PM
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The hair looks good and I only know who he is because of those ears. I’m not a fan of JW Anderson so the fashions spread was underwhelming. Nice neck.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | April 30, 2025 11:09 PM
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Idk I think he had a crush on Groff but two bottoms don’t make a top so it didn’t go anywhere. The Looking fangirls were convinced they were together when he was living in NYC but it turned out later who he was actually fucking at the time was Andy Cohen!
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | April 30, 2025 11:22 PM
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