Especially in New York, I was always made aware of the fact that I had been on the show it was sort of this fantasy come true. SATC was my first acting job in the States, so it was amazing and fantastic, but also totally surreal. Sex and the City, at least for a moment, turned you into a gay heartthrob of sorts.
And I’ve had incredible opportunities to play incredible gay roles. But I just thought wouldn’t it be amazing to be one of those people who just sort of goes for it and see what happens. It takes so much energy to be a person you are not why waste that energy if you don’t have to? I am sure there were other actors who were out back then and their careers did not happen. But would I have wanted those roles if they’d left me closeted and miserable? I just had no interest in taking that kind of chance.
I probably missed out on some parts because people knew I was gay. Do you think you paid a price for all that openness? Many, many straight actors who made SATC cameos-Justin Theroux, Bobby Canavale, Bradley Cooper-have gone on to pretty heavy duty careers. As an actor you always want to get a range of roles, not stuck in just one type, so we’ve certainly been mindful of that. No not at all, I always had great representation and great people around me.
#YEARS AND YEARS GAY SEX SCENE PROFESSIONAL#
What about your professional team? Did they ever tell you not to play any more gay characters? I always had unconditional love and incredible support. Unlike so many other, the people closest to me never told me I was bad or called me an abomination. I was fortunate to have an amazing mother who had gay friends and was incredibly supportive of who I was going to be. “And at my age these are the kinds of roles I want to be playing-fully-fledged, three-dimensional characters that people can relate to.” “One of the things that appealed so much to me about Armond is that it’s not really about how he looks he has this rich inner life,” Bartlett says.
#YEARS AND YEARS GAY SEX SCENE FULL#
While hardly hidden- particularly during one memorable sex scene-Armond’s brazen sexuality seems almost like an afterthought rather than his full persona. Unlike SATC-which featured Murray in peak Gay BFF mode- gayness is just one facet of his White Lotus character, the ill-fated Armond.
Although he appeared in just one episode, it paved the way for an unexpectedly fertile career, including his most recent role as the horny, high-strung resort manager on HBO’s White Lotus. But for Bartlett, that role-a pretty boy with a Down Under twang on season 4 of Sex and the City-provided just enough of a kick-start for decades-long relevance. Nearly 20 years ago, Australian actor Murray Bartlett had his first major break committing what many at the time would have considered certain career suicide: An out gay actor playing an out gay role.