He also thought his parents would disown him for ‘Cruel Intentions.’
In the frantic craziness of life, it can sometimes be hard to remember that times have changed. At least for some. There was a time that not only being gay, but proximity to gayness could result in ostracization.
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It turns out, this is something 90s teen heartthrob Ryan Phillippe is very familiar with. In an interview with Female First, the 46-year-old actor opened up about his experiences playing a gay character at a time when it was heavily stigmatized.
His first gay role was as Billy Douglas on ABC’s One Life To Live in 1992. “When I was a senior in high school, I played the first gay character on a soap opera–first gay teenager ever–and so I was shunned at that point.” Phillippe was 18 at the time of playing this role, which at the time was very controversial.
Phillippe also discussed going to Baptist school and Christian school, so it’s hardly surprising that this heavily impacted his personal life. “I mean, this was 1992, and I was playing a gay teenager and I was in a Christian school. They weren’t happy about it.”
Phillippe also spoke about his role as Sebastian Valmont in Cruel Intentions a few years later. If you’ve seen cruel intentions then you know that the role is not without controversy either.
“I thought my parents were going to disown me,” Phillippe recalls. “I’ve still never played a character like that,” he said. “I want to get back to playing a character like Sebastian. It was just so fun to be so flippant and sort of like, you know, the emotions are theatrical.” Now that times have changed, and Phillippe is very much an adult, perhaps he can.
We wouldn’t mind. In the meantime, you can find us casually browsing his Instagram.
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