Out actor Russell Tovey recently
discussed his decision to publicly come out as gay.
The 40-year-old British actor is best
known in the U.S. for playing Kevin Matheson in the HBO gay drama
Looking and Harry Doyle in the ABC series Quantico.
Tovey has joined the cast of the FX
horror anthology series American Horror Story: New York City.
In the series, Tovey plays a closeted NYPD detective. The cast also
includes Joe Mantello, Zachary Quinto, Charlie Carver and Patti
LuPone.
During a recent appearance on the Just
For Variety podcast, Tovey told host Mark Malkin about being
advised not to come out gay.
“I remember thinking, ‘I’m
hearing you. Thank you very much. I appreciate your advice, but I’m
going to do this because this feels authentic to me.'” Tovey
said. “This feels important to me. It feels important to my
life outside of my pretend life of playing all these characters. I
have to have the stability to know who I am outside of this.”
“I don’t regret it on any level
because my career has taken me somewhere really exciting. And I’ve
played so many queer guys, queer characters that have brought me so
much joy and I feel like have brought a lot of people joy and
changed, set the dial somewhere else for people,” he added.
Tovey also talked about filming a sex
scene with Zach Meiser, who is straight, in American Horror Story:
New York City.
“There is an anxiety that kicks in
that you go, ‘This is a straight guy, I’m a gay guy, openly, and
we’re going to be kissing now.’ And we did it and then his tongue
slipped in and then they cut and he went to me, ‘I just slipped my
tongue in there…Is that all right?’ I said, ‘If it’s all
right with you,'” Tovey said.
“The next time [filmed the scene], I
was like, ‘This guy is up for it! This guy’s committed. I
absolutely love this, let’s go for it!’ So then we are like
eating each other’s face, tongue in each other’s face. At one
point I thought, ‘I’m going to spit in his mouth. No, don’t do
that. That’s too much.’ I had to hold back. That’s when you get
in trouble,” he said.