There has been a wealth of fine screen portrayals of LGBTQ+ characters this year, with more than a few that are likely to land an Oscar nomination. We could, in fact, see the largest total number of Oscar nods ever this season for actors playing queer folks — some true-life, some fictional — besting the record set in 2019. That year, seven such performers competed for the gold in their various categories, with three winners: Rami Malek (“Bohemian Rhapsody”), Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”) and Mahershala Ali (“Green Book”).
In a further distinction, this season, Oscar-buzzy queer roles have been depicted by more out LGBTQ+ performers than all past comparable acting nominees combined. Those prior performers: Jaye Davidson in 1992’s “The Crying Game” (though a cisgender gay man playing a transgender woman), Ian McKellen for 1998’s “Gods and Monsters” and Stephanie Hsu in 2022’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” This go-round: potential out nominees playing queer or trans parts include Colman Domingo (“Rustin”), Jodie Foster (“Nyad”), Andrew Scott (“All of Us Strangers”) and trans performer Trace Lysette (“Monica”).
Straight actors in contention this year for an LGBQT+ role include Bradley Cooper (“Maestro”), Annette Bening (“Nyad”), Fantasia Barrino (“The Color Purple”), Sterling K. Brown (“American Fiction”), Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Barry Keoghan (“Saltburn”), Paul Mescal (“All of Us Strangers”), Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway (“Eileen”), and Gael Garcia Bernal (“Cassandro”). An impressive bunch for sure but, despite the recent gains for queer actors, it remains a mixed bag when it comes to authenticity in casting. (It should also be noted that at least 17 straight actors have won Oscars for playing LGBTQ+ characters.)
Still, given the vast array of queer roles that have garnered Oscar nods over time, it’s worth zeroing in on several of this year’s LGBTQ+ screen characters and their parallels to a past nominee or winner.
Bradley Cooper: ‘Maestro’
Cooper, who also directed and co-wrote (with Josh Singer), stars in this biopic of music-world icon Leonard Bernstein. The larger-than-life conductor and composer of such musical scores as “West Side Story” was long married to a woman but had sexual relationships with men until his heart attack death at 72.
Rami Malek: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (2018)
Malek won the Oscar portraying another legendary musical figure, Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. The singer-songwriter claimed to be bisexual (he was engaged to a woman in the ‘70s) and, like Bernstein, never came out as gay despite many known male sexual partners. He died of an AIDS-related illness at 45. Like Cooper, Malek was a cisgender straight man playing a true-life bisexual.
Colman Domingo: ‘Rustin’
Visionary civil rights activist Bayard Rustin is stirringly brought to life by Domingo in this 1960s-set biopic. Rustin, who attempted within a homophobic era to be his true gay self, co-planned the watershed 1963 March on Washington. Domingo offers a vivid portrait of one man’s political, social and personal survival.
Sean Penn: ‘Milk’ (2008)
Rustin helped blaze a path for San Francisco politico Harvey Milk, who, in the 1970s, became a powerful civil and human rights advocate and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. Penn won the Oscar for his uncanny portrayal of Milk, who was assassinated in 1978. Unlike Domingo, Penn was a straight actor in an LGBTQ+ role.
Fantasia Barrino: ‘The Color Purple’ (2023)
Actress, Grammy Award-winning singer and “American Idol” champ Fantasia Barrino reprises the role of Celie in this musical drama, based on the Broadway show (in which she appeared from 2007 to 2008) and the Alice Walker novel. As a poor Black woman escaping violence and oppression in the Jim Crow South, Celie finds love with a free-spirited female blues singer after being horribly abused by men.
Whoopi Goldberg: ‘The Color Purple’ (1985)
It’s not often that different actors will earn Oscar nods for playing the same character, but it happens: Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro as Vito Corleone in the “Godfather” films, Rita Moreno and Ariana DeBose as Anita in “West Side Story” and its remake, to name a few awarded pairs. That small circle could expand if Barrino is nominated for Celie, a role which won its originator, Whoopi Goldberg, a lead actress nomination in 1986.
Barry Keoghan: ‘Saltburn’
Keoghan, a supporting nominee for last year’s “The Banshees of Inisherin,” could place in the lead actor category for his role as Oliver, a struggling Oxford University student who becomes obsessed with Felix (Jacob Elordi), a hot, privileged male schoolmate. Is he into him, or just his lavish lifestyle? It’s not exactly clear — or queer. “Everyone wants everyone,” writer director Emerald Fennell has said. A summer trip to Felix’s family estate results in a string of shocks and twists, with Oliver at the center.
Timothée Chalamet: ‘Call Me by Your Name’ (2017)
Lead actor nominee Chalamet’s Elio may have been a bit younger, less troubled and arguably more naïve than Keoghan’s Oliver, but he also found himself smitten with a dreamboat of a guy (Armie Hammer) perhaps out of his league over a life-changing European summer. A more random, if thematic, parallel is the height difference between the actors in each couple: Chalamet is 5-foot-10 and Hammer is 6-foot-5, while Keoghan is 5-foot-8 and Elordi is also 6-foot-5.
Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway: ‘Eileen’
Both actors in this provocative, noirish thriller are on Oscar’s radar for their gripping portrayals of two 1960s-era suburban Boston prison workers — a repressed young secretary (McKenzie) and an older, more glamorous and intoxicating psychologist (Hathaway) — whose romantic involvement may spell danger. But for whom? McKenzie has lead actress potential, Hathaway supporting.
Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara: ‘Carol’ (2015)
If the tone in this 1950s-set romantic drama is more genteel than in the Hitchcockian, far pulpier “Eileen,” they have many similarities. Both films, period pieces named after their main character, are based on novels about a drab young brunet (Mara) and a captivating older blond (Blanchett) with a dark side who explore a then-taboo relationship around Christmastime.
Trace Lysette: ‘Monica’
Lysette plays Monica, a transgender woman who reunites with her dying mother after 20 years. Mom hasn’t seen her child since she transitioned and thinks she’s just another caregiver. Monica doesn’t let on and the ruse allows the estranged pair to slowly reconnect. Times reviewer Tracy Brown called Lysette’s widely praised performance “remarkably nuanced.”
Felicity Huffman: ‘Transamerica’ (2005)
Huffman earned an Oscar nomination for playing Bree, a transgender woman who ends up on a road trip with the teen son she never knew she had. As in “Monica,” Bree hides her identity (here from a son) and has been estranged from a disapproving mother. Unlike “Monica,” the lead was played by a cisgender woman.
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