Cameron Monaghan premiered his street
smart gay teen character Ian Gallagher Sunday on Showtime's
Shameless. In a new
interview, Monaghan suggested that his character isn't so different
from Chris Colfer's Kurt Hummel on the Fox musical-comedy Glee.
Shameless
is based on the award-winning British series of the same name
broadcast on Channel 4 and stars Emmy-winning William H. Macy as the
single father of six children living in Chicago. Macy's Frank
Gallagher spends his days drunk, leaving his kids to fend for
themselves.
Monaghan's
character has been described in the media as the “anti-Kurt
Hummel.”
“He's
the anti-stereotype,” Monaghan
told Vanity
Fair of his
character. “He never does anything that's stereotypically
perceived as 'gay.' He's tough, he's street smart, and he's pretty
much unlike any teenager on television right now.”
The
17-year-old actor, however, isn't prepared to say that the two
characters don't share similarities.
“I
think they're leading pretty different lives,” Monaghan told gay
website AfterElton.com.
“Kurt being much more open about his sexuality than Ian, while Ian
is trying to hide it because he's in a neighborhood that's completely
unaccepting of something like that.”
“But
I think they'd definitely be able to talk about some of the struggles
they've had, and they'd relate certainly on some level,” he added.