The Flash Star Is Boycotting Straight Men Roles
Wentworth Miller, star of The Flash and Prison Break, came out as gay in 2013, and he has been sticking to a promise he made to himself to stop playing straight roles for his own mental health.
During the first season of The Flash, Grant Gustin was not a big star, in fact, the biggest star on the show was likely either Jesse L. Martin, or frequent season 1 guest star, Wentworth Miller. As Movieweb reports, Miller, who played Leonard Snart, Captain Cold, across the entire Arrowverse, is a gay man that has decided, for his own mental health, to stop accepting roles in which he plays a straight man. The Prison Break star came out as gay in 2013, between his star-turn on The Flash and after he was considered a sex symbol.
Wentworth Miller’s portrayal of Captain Cold lasted for 14 episodes on The Flash, with the actor’s ability to get across Snart’s strange moral code and detached nature, making the character the first of many breakout roles from the long-running series. Miller continued to play Snart in Legends of Tomorrow’s first season, and as a recurring guest star in season 2 and 3, adding on another 23 episodes as the greatest of Flash’s Rogues. As great a job as Miller did bringing the criminally underrated Captain Cold to life, it was nearly a decade earlier when the star had his breakout role that would define the rest of his career.
In Prison Break, Wentworth Miller played Michael Schofield, a smart engineer that devises an elaborate plan to break his brother, Lincoln Burrows, played by Dominic Purcell (also Heatwave in the Arrowverse), out of prison and off of death row. The hit series also starred Amaury Nolasco, Robert Knepper, Peter Stormare, Robin Tunney Marshall Allman, Sarah Wayne Callies, and William Fichtner, among many, many others. Schofield was played as a straight man, but notably, no love scenes were ever filmed between Miller and Callies, who played his character’s love interest.
Amazingly, Prison Break filmed in a real prison, one that was decommissioned of course, but still, the environment was excessively testosterone-fueled according to Wentworth Miller. As a result of the serialized storytelling, which was a new concept at the time for a network series thanks to Lost and 24, the show as a hit, averaging 9 million viewers for the first two seasons and dropping to only 6 million over the course of the original four seasons. In 2017, Miller came back to reprise his role as Michael Schofield, four years after the actor came out as gay, for a nine episode revival season, and that is the last time Miller will play Schofield, insisting that any further Prison Break projects will not involve him.
Wentworth Miller isn’t just an actor, he’s also been a successful writer, developing the film Stoker and cult horror movie The Disappointments Room. The award-winning actor has been keeping a low profile since 2021, with no active projects announced, but it’s likely he’s enjoying some time out of the spotlight. Here’s hoping that Miller is also working on more horror screenplays, getting ready to produce his own series, or at the very least, relaxing and enjoying the world, comfortable in his own skin, though a final season appearance as Captain Cold would be a very cool surprise.
