The 25-year-old, who plays Tyler Locke on the Netflix series, talks about playing gay characters and whether he feels certain responsibility to provide more details about his sexuality to public.
- Feb 11, 2020
AceShowbiz - Connor Jessup has had enough of his own excuses before deciding to come out as gay. More than seven months after he dropped a major revelation about his sexual preference, the actor portraying Tyler Locke on Netflix's "Locke & Key" opened up about what drove him to finally make public his secret.
In an interview with The Face magazine, the 25-year-old dished, "There came a point where I felt dishonest and I felt uncomfortable and I felt like I was limiting and censoring and editing my own behavior." He continued on, "The reasons why [I hid it] became hazier and hazier as time went on. It didn't make any sense to me anymore."
"So there are a lot of factors that led to me deciding to say something," he added. "I felt embarrassed, not embarrassed about being gay, of course, but embarrassed about saying anything, the idea of making a post drawing attention to myself and the presumption that people would care what I had to say. And so I was like, I'll just keep it to myself. But eventually, all of those excuses weren't enough anymore."
When asked about his source of pressure in regards to playing a gay character from a neutral standpoint, the former "Falling Skies" actor admitted, "It's hard to talk about because, in a way, I'm still figuring it out. I was out in my private life for a while [prior to posting about it on Instagram]. And it just so happened that I played a few characters in different projects who were gay."
"And when it came time to promote them, obviously a big part of talking about them is talking about their sexuality, and I found myself retreating to this neutral language about fluidity and how sexuality is a spectrum, but I was using it in a way to distance myself and depersonalize the subject. You know, the more times you choose not to mention it, you almost feel like you're digging a hole for yourself."
As for whether he feels a certain responsibility to be more open about his sexuality, the "Blackbird" star commented, "It's so hard for me to say." He added, "I'm aware, of course, that it's still pretty rare for actors to be openly gay. I'm not blind to the fact that maybe somewhere, someone who's going through some version of what I went through when I was that age might see the show and read what I wrote or hear about it, and it might mean something."
Jessup confessed of being a gay man in June 2019. In celebration of Pride month, he shared a lengthy message on Instagram that began with him stating, "I knew I was gay when I was thirteen, but I hid it for years." In the post, the "American Crime" star additionally noted he has "been out for years" in his "private life, but never quite publicly."
