Michael Urie Explains Why Straight Actors Need To Stay Away From Gay Roles

Michael Urie explained why he was so adamant about gay actors being cast as gay characters in Netflix’s new queer Christmas movie Single All The Way.

The actor, who became famous playing Marc in Ugly Betty, plays a perpetually single homosexual named Peter in Single All The Way. Peter lives in Los Angeles with his best friend Nick (Philemon Chambers) – and romance quickly blossoms when the couple return to Peter’s family home for the Christmas season.

According to Miracles Forever, there are three major homosexual characters in Single All The Way – Peter, Nick, and James, who is played by Luke Macfarlane. All three roles are played by openly gay actors.

“I don’t have any real power, but I’ve been very clear that we have to make sure the other guys are really gay,” Michael said.

“I was like, it’s gonna be a lot easier in a year when I’m on Zoom doing some junkets if we can talk authentically about our gay experience. It’ll be a lot easier than getting around the fact that my co-star, who I spent the entire movie falling in love with, doesn’t know what it’s like to be in love with a man.

“These are conversations we had at the start of the role search – and everyone was on the same page by the way. But I was very clear – I wanted to make sure everyone know how much more difficult my job would be if I did interviews with a straight person who talked about gay love."

Michael points out that Single All The Way is a movie about two gay men who fall in love with each other – it made sense that these roles were played by gay actors.

“If I talk about this with a straight guy, and the story is like, ‘You were so convincing!’ – like, come on, give me a break. We did that, we’re fed up with it, we don’t need it anymore.

“And maybe the pendulum will turn back. Maybe I’ll do a junket where everyone talks about playing the straight lover in a vacation romantic comedy, wouldn’t that be interesting? And maybe it will, but for now, we all had to be pioneers in what we do. So it was important for me that in this film we represented ourselves."

Philemon Chambers, who plays Peter, Nick’s best friend in Single All The Way, thinks the movie wouldn’t have had as much of an impact if the gay characters had been played by straight actors.

“My character Nick, he’s just himself – and that made me just be myself,” Philemon said.

“Who I am is who I am. It wouldn’t have been the movie it is now if we had had straight actors playing gay characters. They would never have known our experience – not at all.

Single All The Way will be available to stream on Netflix from 2 December.

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