Tan France, Queer Eye's fashion
guy, revealed in a new interview that he almost quit the show during
its first season.
Queer Eye returns for its fourth
season on Netflix on Friday, July 19.
Speaking with INSIDER, France
said that he considered quitting several times.
“After I accepted the job, I was
going to quit before I started shooting because I was too scared of
the pressure," he
told the outlet. "Then, episode three, I tried to quit again
because I was too scared of the cameras and, again, the pressure of
being part of this community so publicly and having to speak for a
community. So yeah, there were many, many times after I accepted the
job that I thought, 'I'm not cut out for this.' I felt so much
pressure to be Hollywood-y, show business-y, but I was the only one
who had no show business experience. The producer of Netflix
encouraged me to just be myself. That's why I was hired. I didn't
have to put on this fabulous persona. I got to just be myself, which
gave me real comfort."
France said that he felt pressure to
represent the Pakistani and LGBT communities. France, who currently
lives in Utah with his husband, was born and raised in England to
Muslim Pakistani parents.
"I'm never going to represent
everyone," France said. “All I can do is be myself and do my
best to conduct myself well. That will hopefully encourage people to
see my people in a more positive light... But other than that, I
don't see myself as representative at all. I do what I do, and I hope
that encourages people to say, 'Oh, well, we don't see all Pakistanis
this way, we don't see all South Asians this way, but we like that
he's not what we see in the press'... Basically what I'm saying is,
not all brown people are terrorists."
"Then, again, accepting the fact
that I didn't have to portray a version of what it is to be a South
Asian, gay immigrant. I just got to be me, and that's why I thought,
'OK, I can do this, and at no point will I profess to speak for
people. I am myself and myself only,'” he said.