Trevante Rhodes, star of the gay drama
Moonlight, talks about how the film is relevant to today's
society.
Based on Tarell Alvin McCraney's play
In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, Moonlight, written
and directed by Barry Jenkins, follows an African-American man
(Rhodes) who struggles to come out gay over three periods of his life
while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.
(Related: Barry
Jenkins: Donald Trump too “dense” to understand race relations,
LGBT rights.)
Rhodes told People magazine that love
transcends gender.
“I was born loving women but I easily
could have been born loving men,” Rhodes
said. “It's the exact same sensation. You don't fall in love
with someone [just] for their physical [traits], but for their
mental.”
The 26-year-old added that the film
“talks about a subject matter that is so prevalent today.”
“Being a black man in America is
relatively difficult right now; being a gay man in America is
incredibly difficult. And so being a black, gay man … can be
perceived as the worst possible thing right now,” Rhodes said.
“So it is something that we need,
that the world needs, and I’m thinking it’s a beautiful thing
that people are receiving it. I didn’t think we were ready for
something like that. And it’s really surprising and really
refreshing to me to see that people are,” he said, a
reference to the film's impressive opening.