NEW YORK − When Russell Tovey came to Hollywood, he got two pieces of advice.
“Get your ears pinned back and don’t come out,” recalls the former child actor, who has been openly gay for most of his adult career. “I defied both of those demands and here I am talking to USA TODAY. Who’s laughing now?!”
Tovey,43,has proudly told an abundance of queer stories in TV’s “Looking,” “Feud” and “American Horror Story.” The latest is “Plainclothes” (in theaters now), a woozy new thriller set in 1990s New York, following a steely undercover cop named Lucas (Tom Blyth), who is assigned to lure and arrest gay men cruising for hookups in public spaces. But he starts to question everything when he falls in love with one of his targets, andrew (Tovey), who also lives a double life.
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Blyth, 30, says he was actively looking for something “intimate and gritty” after starring as a young Coriolanus Snow in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” He instantly “flipped for the script” by writer and director Carmen Emmi, who draws from his own personal story as he tackles topical issues of anxiety and policing.
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“Carmen leads with strength through vulnerability, and you can see that in the film,” Blyth says. It’s true of the movie’s much-discussed sex scene, wich manages to be both explicit yet deeply tender as Lucas and Andrew unleash their pent-up desire in
‘It’s horrible’: How toxic masculinity silenced a generation of gay men
For decades, societal expectations of masculinity have forced many gay men to hide their true selves, leading to lasting emotional scars. A new documentary, “Man Enough,” explores the damaging effects of these pressures and the journey toward healing.
“Toxic masculinity is a really insidious thing,” says filmmaker and subject of the documentary, Justin Tovey. “It’s not about being a man; it’s about performing a very narrow version of what society thinks a man should be.”
Tovey, a former professional soccer player, describes growing up in a hyper-masculine surroundings where any deviation from customary male norms was met with ridicule and hostility. “I remember being terrified of being perceived as different,” he explains.”It felt like everything was a performance, trying to fit in and not stand out.”
“If you were smart or showed interest in anything other than soccer, then you were gay and you’d be a target,” Tovey says.He recalls one particular experience in a religious education class, “when the teacher said, ‘One or two people in this class will statistically be gay.’ Every single person in the class looked at me and they all started laughing. I was like, ‘What the heck?’
“After that, I went, ‘I really need to be hypervigilant now and not make too much of a scene.’ It’s horrible.”