Rebel Wilson On Straight Actors Playing Gay Roles ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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During an appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs broadcast on Sunday, 2 June, Pitch Perfect Star Rebel Wilson weighed in on the ongoing discourse on the unfairness of Straight actors playing gay roles.
While discussing double standards in comedy, host Lauren Laverne asked if women can get away with different jokes than men. In Response, Rebel Wilson recalled, “I’ve definitely told a lot of edgy jokes, and said them sometimes in very public places like the Baftas.”
Rebel Wilson then asserted this was not a gender issue, noting, “If you are something, then now you’re allowed to joke about it. So, say, if you are overweight, you can tell jokes. But if you’re not (you can’t), that’s kind of what’s currently happening. So it’s not really gendered.”
To support her argument, Wilson segued into current sensitivity surrounding the discourse that straight actors cannot play gay roles. Rebel Wilson noted, “It’s going into this territory of saying, ‘Well, only straight actors can play straight roles, and gay actors can play gay roles,’ which I think is total nonsense.” Wilson declared, “I think you should be able to play any role you want.”
During the interview, Rebel Wilson opened up about her personal life, noting the issues in her parents’ marriage drove her to avoid “any kind of romantic relationship.”
In her book Rebel Rising: A Memoir, released earlier this year, the Pitch Perfect star revealed that she lost her virginity at 35. Speaking to host Lauren Laverne, Wilson revealed her parents’ troubled marriage played a role in her avoiding intimacy, saying it “might chain me to a situation I didn’t want to be in”.
Wilson noted that while her mom, Sue Bownds, never divorced her dad with anger issues, she kicked him out of the house when the actress was 16.
