Andrew Scott, who's best know for
playing arch-villain Jim Moriarty on Sherlock, has described
his coming out as “really lovely.”
Scott's performance as Moriarty earned
him the best supporting actor prize at the 2012 British Academy
Television Awards.
In speaking with UK gay glossy
Attitude,
Scott said he came out fairly young.
“I never really have [been in the
closet],” he said. “I never didn't speak about it. It's really
important to find out who you are before you have success, because
there’s really a rush now for actors to get as famous as possible
and so it was really important for me, in the first ten years of my
career just to get to know myself and work hard. I'm glad in a sense
that I wasn't a commodity, because when people start to look at you
and scrutinise you in a way that they didn't before – it's
important you know who they are looking at. You need to know and
accept who you are.”
Coming out “was really lovely
actually. I think I've been very, very, very lucky. I say this from
a place of happiness and contentment now but at the time I didn't
know what way it was going to be.”
“Of course I was scared. We are
talking about years and years ago now. It's not even in this
century. That's another thing, this sort of idea of ‘coming out’
in public that happened a long time ago. Even the words ‘coming
out,’ because there's an inference that you were ever 'in'.”