Guy Pearce Being Canceled After Opinion On Trans Actors?
Guy Pearce apologizes for asking online if trans actors should only be allowed to play trans characters.
Guy Pearce released a lengthy apology after setting social media ablaze with a now-deleted tweet about transgender acting roles. The Australian native, who portrayed a drag queen in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, received backlash for questioning whether transgender actors should only be allowed to play transgender characters.
“A question… If the only people allowed to play trans characters [are] trans folk, then [are] we also suggesting the only people trans folk can play are trans characters?” Guy Pearce wrote via Deadline. “Surely that will limit [your] career as an actor? Isn’t the point of an actor to be able to play anyone outside [your] own world?”
The 55-year-old debated the topic with several people as he tried to explain his point. Since then, Guy Pearce apologized for focusing on the “harassed minority.” “I see that raising the question of gender identity within the casting process on Twitter was not a good idea,” he wrote. “For that, I apologize enormously.”
“I acknowledge it has only stirred up and inflamed attitudes and made us all dig our heels in,” the actor continued. He added that his primary question was insensitive and that he was only trying to defend “the definition of acting” and nothing more. “Throwing the subject onto one minority group was unnecessary, especially from a man with a full house of privilege,” Guy Pearce added.
Along with his apology, Guy Pearce said he only raised the question after being asked for almost 30 years if gay people should have been cast as the leads in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He said the conversations made him reflect on acting and its place in the world. But he still believes that if acting can only be drawn from “our own lived experience,” it destroys imagination.
Additionally, while many marginalized communities are underrepresented on screen, Guy Pearce says actors should not have to reveal their “personal identities, sexual preference, political stance, disability, or religious beliefs” to get roles. He added that the entertainment industry is already a “cesspool of politics, funding, nepotism, and favoritism.”
Whether any actor can or should portray a character from a marginalized community has been a contentious subject in Hollywood. Scarlett Johansson exited the role of a transgender man in a movie called Rub & Tug amid backlash in 2018. The story was later reimaged for television with transgender actors, writers, and producers, Entertainment Weekly reported in 2020.
Eddie Redmayne has also expressed regret at playing a transgender woman in The Danish Girl. However, he received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal. Meanwhile, Guy Pearce gained international attention for his role in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
Along with Hugo Weaving and Terence Stamp, the trio played drag queens traveling across Australia to perform a series of tour dates. During its release in 1994, the film was praised by LGBTQ communities for its positive portrayals of marginalized characters.
Sympathetic portrayals of LGBTQ characters were not common at the time. Speaking about the role during a 2018 episode of The Graham Norton Show, Guy Pearce said his portrayal of a gay drag performer won him support from LGBTQ fans. “We weren’t aware of it. But even now, I get people coming up to me saying, ‘That film helped me come out to my parents,’” he said via Digital Spy.
