"Harry Potter" star Jason Isaacs thinks that Hollywood's gay casting is nothing short of "ridiculous."
The actor, who played Lucius Malfoy in the "Harry Potter" series, recently spoke with the Telegraph about why gay actors choose to stay in the closet, saying he has a lot of gay friends who remain closeted because of the potential professional backlash.
"If you are a romantic lead, there is a perception -- I don’t know if it is true or not -- that you will no longer be cast as straight people," he told the Telegraph. “Even when casting gay roles, there is a tendency to cast straight people, so they are lauded for their transformation. It’s ridiculous. The notion that a gay actor can’t seem like they are in love with a woman on screen is so patently absurd I can’t believe it still exists.”
The 50-year-old Liverpool native is not the only "Harry Potter" star to discuss gay film roles. Leading man Daniel Radcliffe opened up about playing a gay man when discussing his homoerotic work as poet Allen Ginsberg in the film "Kill Your Darlings." The young actor made headlines for the flick's gay sex scene -- which he dubbed "un-shocking."
“You never see a gay actor getting asked what it’s like to play straight -- to my knowledge, at least, there is no difference in how heterosexual and homosexual people fall in love," he told Out magazine of being quizzed on what it was like to play a gay man."
Isaacs, a straight man, has also played gay roles. He previously played a gay Jewish office temp in "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes" at London's Royal National Theatre, opposite Daniel Craig. He joked with the Independent that the "snogging" part was easy since Craig is "such a sexy man."
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