Lauren German (Hawaii Five-0)
plays lesbian EMT Leslie Shay on NBC's upcoming drama Chicago
Fire.
Chicago Fire, which is produced
by Law & Order creator Dick Wolf, follows the lives of a
group of firefighters and paramedics working at the Chicago Fire
Department. It premieres on October 10 after Law & Order:
SVU.
Viewers learn of Shay's sexual
orientation in the show's pilot.
“Are you gay?” she says in averting
a co-worker's advances. “Because I am.”
At the Television Critics Association
(TCA), German said her lesbian character doesn't fall into “cliches
of homosexuality.”
“That's one thing I was really
impressed by in the script,” she is quoted as saying by lesbian
entertainment blog AfterEllen.com.
“It's very normal, as it should be, I think. And yeah, I think
she's beyond being out of the closest. It's just like any other
thing. It just is, and I like that.”
“I mean love is love and I personally
would approach it no differently,” she said about playing her
character.
“I've played a few lesbians and I
have gay and lesbian friends and I don't think it's really any
different. It's almost like asking a straight character, 'How do you
play straight?' You're just attracted to what you're attracted to.
It's really just playing whatever's going on in the scene.”
(A trailer for Chicago Fire is
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