Welcome to PRIDE's LGBT entertainment podcast, WerQ!
Join editor-in-chief Raffy Ermac and culture writer Taylor Henderson as we chat with Keiynan Lonsdale, the 26-year-old actor playing Bram in the highly-anticipated gay teen rom-com Love, Simon.
Keiynan opens up about his depression, how he came out to his friends (very dramatically at a house party), how Hollywood shoved him back into the closet, why he came out to the world (while filming Love, Simon!), and the happiness he found after leaving the closet.
"Maybe six months after I'd come out, I booked Insurgent, my first job in the U.S. When I booked that and I was officially moving over here, I went back in the closet.
Suddenly, I was in a whole new place. I was like, 'oh, I could just be honest straightaway,' but then that's when my fear of Hollywood and ruining my career, that's when all that came in. I had a few months of being out, then I all of a sudden went back in."
"Sexuality was the thing I gripped so tightly on for my whole life. Once I was completely free, I just started to grow a lot. I've changed a lot.
This is what it feels like to be a full human being."
Keiynan also shares what it's like to navigate Hollywood as a black actor, and how he hopes Love, Simon, with its several lead characters of color, will change that narrative.
"When you know another black actor is cast in a film or tv show, you think, 'Oh I'm not going to get anything in it then. They've already got one black guy.'''
"This proves that that's not the case. Just because one black person has gotten an opportunity doesn't mean you can't also."
Raffy's weekly obsession:
Taylor's weekly obsession:
AND GO SEELOVE, SIMON!
Follow Keiynan, Raffy, and Taylor on Twitter, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud!
