OK, lets take Ian McKellan to define “Movie Star” and come up with some categories for measurement:
Recognizable name - maybe an 8 on a scale of 10 - not Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks, but I’m betting most people wouldn’t say who.
Award nominations/ winnings - Yes. maybe an 8 out of ten. Two Oscar nods.
Heartthrobability - I’m giving him a low score here. He is simply too old to be but a few strange girls “Teen Beat” pinup. Doesn’t have anything to do with having the gay, though. He does get a few points for being a distinguished and classy looking man with a British accent - 4
Box office draw - He has certainly been in blockbusters - and was one of the few really recongizable names in LotRs, but the announced Magneto may be the first true “Ian McKellen” vehicle. 4
Believability as a romatic lead - Gods and Monsters? I’m not buying he’ll be the next romantic interest in a Meg Ryan Vehicle. 2
Believability to kick ass - Gandalf and Magneto lose some points because they aren’t the “Rambo” manly man, but well give him an 8.
Extensive Career - he’s had one, but he’s a recent arrival to people not asking “who?” A 6
Hollywood gossipability - Not really. He hasn’t made the cover of people for dumping Jennifer Aniston - or even Brad Pitt. 4
Lets compare this with someone undenabily a star - Jack Nicholson
Recognizable name - I’m sure there are people who haven’t heard of Jack, but they have likely been in monestaries on in a coma - 10
Awards - Three gold statuettes, a ton of nominations - 10
Heartthrobability - I don’t get it, but yes. Especially in his yonger years. Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider Jack - 9
Box Office Draw - yeah - people cast Jack Nicholson to make a Jack Nicholson movie - 9
Believability as a Romantic Lead - So “As Good as It Gets” wasn’t believable to me. He gets cast over and over again - there must be something there - 9
Ability as an Action Hero - younger Jack, yep. 8
Extensive Career - 10
Gossipability - 6 - While Lara Flynn Boyle and his supermodel dates are impressive, his breakup with Anjelica Huston didn’t make the cover of people.
I’ll say Sir Ian flirts at the edges of stardom, but is not exactly a gas giant.
Alternate theory: Cruise has stuck with the CoS this long because they’ve promised him if he reaches “clear” level (and who ever does?) his gayness will be cured. (Or, they promised him that early on, and by now he’s too thoroughly indoctrinated to leave.)
A Hollywood superstar is someone who’s counted on to sell lots of tickets. No one in history has ever uttered the phrase “Have you seen the trailer for that new Ian McKellan movie?” Ian McKellan is not a Hollywood superstar. Will Smith, Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, those are names you can build a movie around. Those are names that are usually more important than the name of the movie they are in.
I’d say the only chance an uncloseted gay male has of reaching superstar status right now is in comedy. A comedy doesn’t necessarily need a believable romantic plot for the lead, and funny is funny. It’s hard to feel threatened by some queer if you’re too busy laughing at him. But even so, if the actor’s homosexuality was too big a part of his public persona, it could tank his career. You want middle America to think of you as “that funny fellow” not “that fag.”
I was under this mis-apprehension about the gay lifestyle until I started a thread asking about this very issue some time ago. The overall upshot of that thread per responding gay men was that while there are some distinctly queeny gay men, most gay men are not all that fabulous, lead fairly prosaic lifestyles, and generally behave and think pretty much like typical lounging, grunting, scratching hetero males except for the “liking guys” part. It was quite a letdown.
Could you name a couple? I can only think of features when he played a gay character or a foppish character, or looked completely out of place wooing Alicia Silverstone in The Importance of Being Earnest.
It’s basically Clint Eastwood’s take on the old Zane Gray/ Louis L’Amour “Hold Off Seven Men with a Six-Shooter” motif. Josey acknowledges that he can’t shoot them all, but points out that he will definitely kill the first man to approach him.
I’ve heard this said many times, and I just don’t get it. Nobody is going to claim that Michael J. Fox is the Laurence Olivier of his generation (although he is a perfectly fine actor in his field, as you say), but Alex Keaton isn’t Marty McFly, and neither of them is Frank Bannister.
Yeah, this is going to be a fruitless discussion if people keep insisting that Ian McKellan and Rupert Everett are Hollywood leading men. But I guess it permits us the comfortable fantasy that homophobia is entirely over.
I don’t think most women I know would care if a leading man was gay. In fact, one of my friends has a thing for Vin Diesel, and I mentioned the rumors that he was gay, and she said, “So?” She doesn’t care, since it’s strictly fantasy anyway, and she then pointed out that he also plays a monosyllabic ape in most of his movies, and she doesn’t care about that either. Women lusting after movie stars is mostly about fantasy, and I don’t think most women’s fantasies would be wrecked by it.
On the other hand, I think we do have a ways to go before people are willing to accept that gay men aren’t all the characatures you see on TV. The James Bond franchise features a well-groomed, suave leading man, but most action movies don’t. I’m not sure if most people would accept a gay man playing a typical Tom Cruise-style role; witness the assertion in this very thread (which, we can assume is considerably more enlightened than any random group of people from the general public) that gay men dress well, smell nice, and like dancing. That whole effeminate (or fabulous) gay man stereotype isn’t going away any time soon. (FTR, while I hope I smell okay, I don’t care in the slightest about clothes and I don’t dance.)
Not that blockbuster action movies are the only type of superstardom there is. That’s not really Tom Hanks’ thing, but he’s undeniably pretty hot property. I guess it doesn’t seem impossible that a gay man would have success with that kind of role, but there still hasn’t been a gay actor who’s that successful. I’m inclined to think that if America was ready, it would probably have happened. But maybe Hollywood and its leading men are overestimating the conservatism of the public.
Maybe I’m just the lucky one or something, but the gang of gay guys I know rate pretty high on the fabulous scale–not a queen amongst them, every one of them goes to the gym, dresses well and rates very high on the smart/fun to talk to scale. They even dressed damned nicely for the Red Dress Benefit Ball–I saw the pictures, tres hilarious seeing these very male type guys in dresses they picked out themselves and don’t I wish I could’ve gone along on THAT shopping trip!
I discussed this thread with one good friend and his take on it is that the only stinky guys he knows are into that kind of thing as a fetish/kink thang and he wouldn’t be caught dead with a scruffy badly dressed ball scratchin’ breeder clone and neither would any of his bunch. YMMV, of course, but I’m not about to tell this gay guy he doesn’t know what he’s talking about…
Gigi: Hmmm, I found Reese Witherspoon (not Alicia) to be much less believable in “Earnest” than Rupert by a long shot… Sure, he plays a civilized style guy in most of his roles but that’s fine because he LOOKS like a civilized guy and sounds like one too. He’d be drastically miscast as a monosyllabic grunting two fisted gunslingin’ action hero type. He was swoony as Kit Marlowe in “Shakespeare In Love” and I loved his Oberon as well. Perhaps it’s just that I don’t find that foppish men seem gay–too many years in the SCA to make THAT error… (Those darned fops will have you on the grass with your skirts up in seconds if you ever make the mistake of thinking you’re safe from them… ) Even though he was playing a gay guy in “The Next Best Thing” he presented as way studlier than Benjamin Bratt (who came across as too much of a namesake) and much more sexy.
Of course it could be I just have weird tastes and perceptions–not that I’d be too shocked to discover this of myself…again…
I think an openly gay man could make it as a leading man in comedies and dramas. Probably not so much in action films because those are about fulfilling the fantasies of adolescent males. As we all know, if a thirteen year old boy goes to a movie with a gay actor in it, that means he’s gay. And I don’t think an openly gay actor would ever be accepted in a leading non-arthouse role that requires him to kiss a woman, either.
I just wanted to point out that those arguing that Ian McKellen is a movie star merely by virtue of being in blockbusters are by extension arguing that Hugo Weaving is a movie star as well. Movie stars aren’t in blockbusters, they headline blockbusters. Weaving and McKellen essentially played bit parts behind Keanu Reeves, Hugh Jackman and Viggo Mortensen (Orlando Bloom for the teenyboppers) in those particular blockbusters.
I can’t see an openly gay actor taking over the parts of, say, Tom Hanks in his Meg Ryan schlockfests. However, I think Hugh Jackman is the closest to being able to pull it off.
I don’t particularly think he’s gay – though I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he were – but I contend that if he were gay, he could have come out last year without it affecting the newest X-Men box office in the slightest. (Not that his Meg Ryan schlockfest did particularly well anyway, so he could probably do another after coming out and it wouldn’t have any effect there either.)
I think the question of “could an openly gay actor be a leading man” is inherently less interesting than “which current leading man – gay or straight – could openly come out as gay and still retain his box office draw?” I can’t think of a better example than Hugh Jackman.
Also, I admit that I am less interested in gay actresses while I know they are gay. (Bisexual is fine as long as they aren’t in a committed lesbian relationship.) I too was bummed upon learning about Sara Gilbert, and I also found Portia de Rossi much less appealing when I found out. As dopey as this is, when Six Days, Seven Nights was released, I was totally uninterested in Anne Heche, who I had dug in a dirty way previou to her “coming out.” Then when she apparently went back to guys, all of a sudden she was very appealing in that incredibly stupid movie. (Pirates?!) Nothing had changed but my perception, but in the movie business, perception is indeed reality.
Yeah, but your perception isn’t what defines that reality. In this thread, we see that there are a couple people who share your mysterious dislike for actors they have one teensy tiny particle less of a chance of ever fucking, and many others who do not care.
Okay, I will. I will definitely keep telling myself that Ellis Dee’s perception of reality does not automatically negate everyone else’s, and that other people’s personal antecdotes are exactly as valid as his. And you’ll keep telling yourself the opposite without any need for my permission, I’m sure.
) Even though he was playing a gay guy in “The Next Best Thing” he presented as way studlier than Benjamin Bratt (who came across as too much of a namesake) and much more sexy.