"Any sort of sense of prejudice against sexuality is something to fight against, and what better way to do that than to go and play any kind of character," added Bailey, 37.
"Being an out gay actor, historically, meant that you wouldn't be able to play straight and there weren't any gay parts to play anyway. That's obviously changed massively," he said.
Bailey has had a range of memorable roles since making fans swoon as Lord Anthony Bridgerton on the hit Netflix romance, including opposite Matt Bomer in Fellow Travelers and beside Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in Wicked, where he played Prince Fiyero.
For Attitude magazine's February 2021 issue, Bailey spoke about being discouraged to come out as gay while pursuing an acting career.
He said at the time, "The most conservative conversations I’ve had about me being honest about my sexuality in this day and age have come from gay men in the industry, ‘Oh, no, you can’t come out. You shouldn’t really do that. If you do that, you’re going to have to....' "
"There’s a sense of shame, I think, that’s palpable throughout gay men within the industry. But then there’s also this heteronormative, heterosexual understanding of sexuality," said Bailey.
"So, in my generation," he continued, "the out gay actors are now being poached. And you get a script sent through and they’ll say, ‘Must be comfortable with talking about sexuality.' So that is in one way a brilliant thing, because it’s saying we’re not encouraging anyone not to talk about sexuality, but it’s also showing that sexuality is becoming a commodity. That actually there needs to be this sense that studios are hiring gay actors to play either gay actors or straight."
