Lucas Hedges is garnering early Oscar buzz for “Boy Erased,” in which he portrays a fundamentalist Christian teen who attends a “gay conversion” camp.
Now the 21-year-old actor is using the cultural discussion surrounding the hotly anticipated film to open up about his own sexuality.
Hedges, who received a supporting actor Oscar nomination for 2016′s “Manchester by the Sea,” told Vulture in an interview published Wednesday that he “exists on a spectrum” but stopped short of using terms like “straight,” “gay” or “bisexual” to label his sexuality.
“In the early stages of my life, some of the people I was most infatuated with were my closest male friends,” he explained. “That was the case through high school, and I think I was always aware that while for the most part I was attracted to women, I existed on a spectrum.”
Recalling a middle school health class discussion, he added, “I felt ashamed that I wasn’t 100 percent, because it was clear that one side of sexuality presents issues, and the other doesn’t as much. I recognize myself as existing on that spectrum: Not totally straight, but also not gay and not necessarily bisexual.”
Elsewhere in the interview, he recalled the time he told his mother he had a crush on a boy he met at a day camp in the third grade.
“I felt terrible about it,” he said. “I remember her being very comforting, and she understood that something was distressing me, and she said, ‘You don’t have to go back to camp today.’”
“Boy Erased,” which hits theaters this fall, won’t be the first time Hedges has tackled issues of sexuality on the big screen. In 2017′s “Lady Bird,” he played Danny O’Neill, who struggles to come to terms with his sexuality after his girlfriend, Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), sees him kissing another boy.
It’s shaping up to be another busy season for Hedges. In addition to “Boy Erased,” the actor will appear alongside Elaine May and Michael Cera in Broadway’s “The Waverly Gallery” in October.
Read the full Vulture interview with Lucas Hedges.
