OUT MAGAZINE
We love Queen Charlotte on Bridgerton, but we love Golda Rosheuvel, the out gay actress who plays her even more.
One of the many reasons we love her is the pride she has about being a Black gay woman, but if she had followed some of the advice she got earlier in her career, we wouldn't have her as the out and proud role model she is now.
In a recent appearance on theJust for Variety podcast, Rosheuvel talked about how she was encouraged by an unnamed lesbian director not to come out.
"We were talking about being out and proud and representation and whether I should say I was gay in interviews, and it was an absolute no," she said she was told. "'You absolutely shouldn't do that. It could or it would ruin your career as an actor.'"
"I would rather lose a job than not be true to who I am," Rosheuvel continued. "I'd rather not work in an industry that doesn't accept me...It just wasn't how I was raised. And then her being out as a female director, as a lesbian director, I was like, 'I don't understand this advice.' It blew my mind."
She previously opened up about the experience to Out, telling us that she was told being out would ruin her career.
"It was so weird because it was told to me by a gay person who I thought was out and proud," she said. "It revealed a lot about her and her insecurities and what she was going through. But I think it really empowered me; it really made me look at myself and go, 'How do I want to be? How do I want to represent myself in the world?'"
We're so thankful empowerment was her response. As a Black gay actress playing the Black Queen of England, she's certainly an inspiring figure, and one that we love every time we see her.
Aside from Bridgerton, Rosheuvel is now filming a Queen Charlotte origin series, so she'll be able to be an even more visible role model. "It's important for me to be out and proud and to normalize things for that one person, that one young boy or girl or transgender or nonbinary [person] to be able to say, 'I'm not alone.'"
The first two seasons of Bridgerton are currently streaming on Netflix.
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