Matt Bomer Said Being In The Closet Made Him a Better Actor
Matt Bomer is probably one of the sexiest guys in Hollywood, and has the power to “turn” some of the straightest guys to the gay end of the pool (if you catch our drift). But he would never! After all, he’s happily married with kids.
Sexy, married, family man… he’s so PERFECT!
Anyway, Matt recently revealed in a new interview with OUT magazine about his struggles with coming out as a kid and young adult, growing up in suburban Bible Belt Texas.
“One of the ways I learned how to act, really, is by having secrets, and having to function as a kid in a public school in suburban Bible Belt Texas,” he said. “Subsequently I worked on a gas pipeline with my brother for a while — there were ex-cons with us. It was not an environment where it was safe to be gay. I did learn how to protect myself — it was literally acting of the highest stakes. I had my brother to protect me, but as terrible as it may sound, it was a way I learned to select behavior and make choices, even if it was a ruse just to survive, you know?”
Being raised in a conservative Christian home, he wasn’t allowed to watch “secular” TV. After finding theater and realizing his sexuality, the time came to tell his family.
“Telling your family is a huge, huge deal,” he shared. “I really view my life as divided between the time before I told my parents, and the time after. And the decisions I made, and the life I lived, before and after, are vastly different. It’s night and day.” He later met a hair and makeup artist at Utah Shakespeare Festival, and was so inspired by him:
“If this person can live their truth, what am I doing?” he recalled. The makeup artist later inspired him to come out to his parents in a letter: “I would have lost my sense of direction if I tried to do it in person.”
Read the full story at OUT.