I feel like I've been observed as an individual more than a gay person, or as a filmmaker with a certain point of view rather than a lesbian filmmaker with a gay point of view.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I could not - and I still cannot - see a sustainable career as a filmmaker in which I focus fully on our gay stories.
I feel like because I've done more gay characters, gay scenes, or gay projects than most straight actors, people see it as some sort of mission. It's more of a case-by-case basis, and just trying to capture figures that I love. I guess that a lot of the figures that I love were gay.
I get told a lot that I'm kind of carving my own path. That there are not many actors who are out and are able to play straight and gay, and everyone's OK with it.
My films might have been queer - because I was - but they were not gay.
I was told that if I wanted to be a leading man in Hollywood, I couldn't possibly be thought of as gay.
I think I was probably looking for gay role models when I was younger, before I even knew or thought I was gay. I didn't really make the connection that they were gay, but I felt drawn to them because they were going against the grain, and I knew there was something that they had that everybody else didn't have. It was an edge.
I did a women's movie, and I'm not a woman. I did a gay movie, and I'm not gay. I learned as I went along.
In Hollywood it seems that you're considered gay until proven otherwise.
But I always see myself as the filmmaker. I wonder if everybody else sees me more as an actor.
As far as I was concerned, either I was a homosexual or I wasn't, so making films would change nothing.