Nobody would ever say that… To me it’s like, a funny movie. Yeah, like what, it’s a “straight comedy”? It’s a “straight rom-com”? No.
#Gay twitter nsfw movie
It doesn’t… my identity in real life is not… it doesn’t inform my career choices necessarily.Īnalyssa: I think that’s something we’ve heard a bunch about Crush - and that I thought, too! - it’s like being gay for Paige and for all the people in the movie who are queer… it’s part of who they are but it’s not the leading characteristic.Īnalyssa: It’s just about a movie about people who are gay. It doesn’t feel like it’s about - I don’t feel like I was setting out to be making a gay thing. I don’t know, I really was attracted to the movie because it feels like it’s just about Paige and her friends and her mom and her school and her crush. That it’s not like… it doesn’t feel like she’s defined by this part of her identity, which is probably one of the least interesting things about her. Rowan: I mean, honestly, it doesn’t feel different from playing my other characters - I think that’s what I like about the movie. You came out on Twitter and it became this whole thing about, I feel, your persona in the media - I was wondering what it feels like to be playing an out gay character at this point in your life so many years later. You’ve been publicly out as queer since you were 14. So the first question’s kind of a big one.
Rowan: My hair is still wet, it’s been wet in all these interviews.Īnalyssa: That was my other option, I was like if I shower I could have wet hair or I can just throw this little scarf over it. It’s a cover for the fact that I didn’t get to wash my hair this morning.
You know how when you walk by a group of teens in public somewhere, you kind of hope they look at you and think “that’s a cool person”? Despite my best efforts, that was definitely the vibe of my chat with her!Īnalyssa: Oh, thank you. She’s thoughtful and self-assured, but also prone to grasping for her words while speaking and, as far as I can tell, loves a good placement of the f-word. In person (on Zoom) Blanchard seems less like a figurehead and a lot more like most smart, composed twenty-year-olds you know. Joining me from the floor where she was sitting next to the WiFi box, with still-wet hair from her morning shower, she still has an air of effortless cool. She’s witty and funny with her friends, but hopelessly tongue-tied around her crush, and Blanchard delivers both tones - and everything in between - with clear-eyed precision. That spotlight hasn’t been without its pressures, causing Rowan to state in interviews that she had to reevaluate the role of social media and that form of online activism in her life.Īs Paige, the lead in Hulu’s new queer rom-com Crush, which releases on Friday, Blanchard plays a slightly awkward high schooler who is struggling with her application to a summer arts program. Suddenly, she was looked to as an activist, incredibly poised, articulate and ready to shake things up. Time magazine named her one of the most influential teens of 2015. She gave a speech on feminism and gender equality at the UN Women and US National Committee’s annual conference that same year, as a member of #TeamHeForShe, which Emma Watson also lead. At age 14, the then-Disney Channel star wrote an essay on the importance of intersectional feminism which went viral, and wrote regularly for Rookie magazine.
If you were on a certain part of the Internet around 2015, Rowan Blanchard’s reputation might precede her. The 200 Best Lesbian, Bisexual & Queer Movies Of All Time.