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Eric McCormack, pictured in Los Angeles in February
CNN
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Actor Eric McCormack has weighed in on the talk round whether or not non-LGBT actors ought to have the ability to play homosexual characters.
McCormack, who’s straight however is finest identified for taking part in homosexual lawyer Will Truman within the NBC comedy sequence “Will & Grace,” mentioned in an interview on British tv Monday that he nonetheless hopes “the perfect particular person for the position” can be forged, no matter their sexuality.
Susanna Reid, a co-host on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” present, requested McCormack what he thought of straight actors taking part in homosexual characters.
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McCormack and “Will & Grace” co-star Debra Messing in June 2023
“That’s a tricky one for me, as a result of I didn’t turn out to be an actor in order that I might play an actor,” mentioned McCormack.
“There’s no half I’ve ever performed the place I wasn’t taking part in one thing I’m not. It’s a part of the gig.”
“And I’ve at all times mentioned: ‘If homosexual actors weren’t allowed to play straight actors, Broadway can be over,’” he added.
“So that is what we do. I’d wish to suppose that I symbolize it effectively, you recognize, actually. I got here from the theater, and certainly one of my finest mates was a homosexual man.”
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A scene from episode 110 of “Will & Grace”
“So I believe I took their spirit and their message in what was in any other case only a sitcom and, represented it, I hope,” mentioned the Canadian-born actor.
“Good Morning Britain” co-host Ed Balls then requested McCormack whether or not he felt he can be forged as Will if the present had been being made right now.
“Effectively, I suppose the reply can be, they’d need to say within the casting room: ‘And also you’re homosexual, proper?,’ which I don’t suppose they will say,” the actor responded.
“So I nonetheless suppose, as you say, it’s hypothetical. I want to suppose normally that the perfect particular person for the position, the one which is available in and knocks it out of the park, is the one which will get the half.”
Created by Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, “Will & Grace” informed the story of two co-dependent finest mates – inside designer Grace Adler, performed by Debra Messing, and McCormack’s lawyer Will – who share an condominium in New York Metropolis.
Its depiction of single, urbanites – some homosexual, some straight – was thought-about groundbreaking on the time.
The present debuted on NBC in September 1998 and ran till 2006, earlier than coming back from 2018 to 2020. In complete, there have been 246 episodes over 11 seasons.