Gay kids need to stop killing themselves because they are made to feel worthless by cruel and relentless bullying.
I try to be as fearless as possible. I don’t always succeed, but I like to think I try.
It is my intention to live an authentic life of compassion and integrity and action.
I think the goal is always to go deeper within myself, and accept myself on deeper levels and to know myself on deeper levels. Whether or not I look for roles that are going to do that for me, I certainly look for the ways in which the roles I get can do that for me.
We are witnessing an enormous shift of collective consciousness throughout the world. We are at the precipice of great transformation within our culture and government.
Our society needs to recognize the unstoppable momentum toward unequivocal civil equality for every gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered citizen of this country.
Parents need to teach their children principles of respect and acceptance.
I think we’re a little bit more astray, more far afield from true integration and true acceptance.
We just have to have visibility. We have to have acknowledgement. We have to have accountability to how we treat one another.
I listen to music a lot, if I need to get into a particular space. I do stretching and breathing, and take time to mostly be quiet and find the stillness. I think that’s important.
I would love to be a voice in this maelstrom of chaos and obsessive celebrity infatuation that says, ‘Let’s talk about something that matters’.
I loved auditioning because it was just an opportunity to act. Whether or not I got the job was the next hurdle, but the idea that I would get to act that day was the thing that excited me the most about it.
I found myself in a pattern of being attracted to people who were somehow unavailable, and what I realized was that I was protecting myself because I equate the idea of connection and love with trauma and death.
Part of being a psychopath is an ability to dissociate from one reality and create another one, completely.
Again, as a gay man I look at that and say there’s a hopelessness that surrounds it, but as a human being I look at it and say ‘Why? Where’s this disparity coming from, and why can’t we as a culture and society dig deeper to examine that?’ We’re terrified of facing ourselves.
I went away to this summer program after my junior year of high school. They used to have this thing called the Governor’s School, and they had it for different disciplines – science, math, performing arts. I auditioned and I got accepted, and it was an eight-week program away from home. I went for acting. I was 15, and I turned 16 while I was there, so that was a seminal moment for me. It made me realize the life of it, the discipline of it, and the joy of that discipline, where it was all we did.
My desire to be valued is manifested in cultivating relationships with my friends and family.
I was definitely an extroverted personality at a young age and theater was an outlet for me to channel that energy.
That idea of comparison is what fans do. That’s why fans exist. They believe in something and something connects to them, and they have passionate feelings and opinions about films.
I remember [Patrick J. Adams] being in a particularly disillusioned place and really wanting your ambitions to be met with opportunity and not feeling like they were. It’s all the more reason that I feel grateful to be able to stay connected and be in each other’s lives. Obviously now you’re in a very different place, and it’s really nice to be able to look back on that and be reminded of how far we’ve come, at least in the opportunity aspect. The mental state aspect of it is a different story, I’m sure, but I always knew you would work.
It didn’t really change my opinion about [Edward] Snowden all that much, but I definitely feel like as a culture, it gave us information that generated a responsibility to protect ourselves as much as we can and also a responsibility to hold our government accountable to honoring our constitutional rights.
I don’t really approach a character as to whether or not it’s good or bad. I just approach a character as to where it lives in me.
My dad died when I was a kid, so I think it became a place for me to go where my mom knew that I was safe and taken care of and looked after.
There was a little bit of hesitancy about staying in Pittsburgh and not moving away for college, but that didn’t last long. It was right in line with what I wanted, so I auditioned there and it wasn’t a tough decision.
In light of Jamey [Rodemeyer]’s death — it became clear to me in an instant that living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it — is simply not enough to make any significant contribution to the immense work that lies ahead on the road to complete equality.
